


Palisades, Palisades

by magicites



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Humanstuck, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Slow Burn, Summer Camp AU, background rosemary that isnt actually in the background at all, this is NOT SAD I PROMISE, your typical davekat stuff?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-17 12:24:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 46,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9323411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicites/pseuds/magicites
Summary: In your memories, you see Dave Strider, fourteen-years-old and made up of lean muscle and awkward limbs that he would still need a few years to grow into fully. Crows surround him, all cawing impatiently, vying for the chicken sandwich in his backpack. He swears loudly as he swings a stick at them, trying to get them to leave him the fuck alone.“Stupid feathery assholes,” he’d always complain once he finally shooed them away.You tear yourself out of the memory. You miss him, and you hate yourself for it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired entirely by the song, "The Predatory Wasps of the Palisades are Out to Get Us!" by Sufjan Stevens. You can listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBMwwJMkcRA
> 
> Wow. It's been years since I last seriously wrote fanfiction. (And doesn't that make me feel old? How old are all of you, anyways? Teenagers?)
> 
> But even now, Homestuck -- its story, its characters -- feels like visiting an old friend. Because of Homestuck, I've met so many dear friends, and I found a haven to stay in during the worst years of my life. It inspired me to write unlike anything else. Even now, I draw a little bit on comfort from the characters and the struggles. This goofy webcomic will always occupy a little piece of my heart, as cheesy as it sounds.
> 
> Consider this my love letter to Homestuck, and to the fandom that ignited my passion. Thank you.

It’s 2:45 in the morning and though you feel the heavy weight of exhaustion pulling at your entire body, you can’t sleep. Fucking typical. You’ve tried several times tonight, each resulting in the same astounding success rate of zero percent. Your head hits your pillow, you squeeze your eyes shut, and then…nothing. Absolutely nothing. Your thoughts keep flying at a pace so fast that you have no hope of ever stopping them.

Fuck insomnia.

So instead you sit up in bed, with your laptop (a fucking Macbook Pro, which you still think is an overpriced piece of shit, but you’d rather not get into that now) in front of you. You sit hunched over the keyboard as you send a few frustrated messages to the only person who you know is also insane enough to be up at this hour of night. She doesn’t respond to your first message, but you keep typing regardless. She’ll notice you soon enough.

CG: HEY.  
CG: GUESS WHO CAN’T FUCKING SLEEP AGAIN! THAT’S RIGHT. ME. AND BEFORE YOU TRY TO SUGGEST WHATEVER INANE NEW-AGE HOME REMEDY YOU SAW ADVERTISED ON FACEBOOK TODAY, I ALREADY TRIED THEM ALL.  
CG: CHAMOMILE TEA DIDN’T HELP. ALL IT DID WAS BURN MY TOUNGE. WHITE NOISE DIDN’T WORK, EITHER. THE ~*SOUNDS OF THE SEA*~ DID ABSOLUTELY FUCKALL EXCEPT ANNOY ME AND MAKE MY SPEAKER SOUND LIKE ITS CIRCUTRY WAS ABOUT TO EXPLODE AND LIGHT MY ENTIRE HOUSE ON FIRE.  
CG: I EVEN TRIED TAKING MELATONIN. BEFORE YOU TELL ME THAT I HAVE TO WAIT FOR IT TO KICK IN, I ALREADY KNOW THAT. IT’S BEEN TWO AND A HALF HOURS AND I DON’T FEEL ANY DIFFERENT THAN BEFORE.  
CG: SO I FIGURE THAT IF I HAVE TO SUFFER FROM SLEEP DEPRIVATION, I MIGHT AS WELL KEEP MYSELF FROM SUFFERING FROM MIND-NUMBING, SHIT-SPEWING BOREDOM.  
CG: …  
CG: I KNOW YOU’RE ONLINE. YOU HAVEN’T GONE TO SLEEP BEFORE FOUR THIS WHOLE WEEK, SO DON’T ACT LIKE YOU JUST FORGOT TO TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER!  
CG: BESIDES, YOU’VE BEEN SKYPING KANAYA CONSTANTLY, AND WHILE SHE MAY BE JETLAGGED AS HELL, I’M PRETTY SURE SHE’D BE AWAKE AT 6PM. VAMPIRE FETISH OR NOT, SHE’S NOT STUPID ENOUGH TO GO COMPLETELY NOCTURNAL WHEN SHE’S SUPPOSED TO BE ON VACATION.  
CG: FUCKING TIMEZONES.  
CG: THEN AGAIN, SHE’S PROBABLY EATING DINNER AT THIS TIME LIKE A NORMAL FUCKING PERSON. AND SINCE SHE’S THE CLOSEST THING TO NORMAL OUR PATHETIC GROUP OF RAG-TAG IDIOTS HAS, I’D SAY MY GUESS IS PRETTY GOOD.  
CG: WHICH MEANS THAT YOU’RE PROBABLY JUST SIGHING WISTFULLY AT THE SIGHT OF HER EMPTY HOTAL ROOM SINCE SHE DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO TURN OFF THE VIDEO FEED WITHOUT ENDING THE CALL.  
CG: …TELL HER I SAID HI, BY THE WAY.  


A shiver runs through your body, and you tug your blanket out from underneath yourself to wrap it around your shoulders. God, you hate winter. You hate being freezing cold all the time, you hate the wind that pierces your skin whenever you step outside, and you especially hate the fact that you’re the poor asshole that has to shovel your driveway every morning so your dad can take you to school. 

Since you’re probably not going to get a response any time soon, you bite back a groan and open your browser instead. Maybe you can distract yourself with articles or something until she decides that you’re actually worth her time and messages you back. You click around your bookmarks until you find something that looks worthy of your attention.

Huh. One of your favorite critics just posted a new review, and you don’t recognize the title of the movie. Curious, you click on the link.

Just as you’re about to start reading, a sharp tap against your window makes you freeze. A jolt of terror runs down your spine, making your heart race like the fucking Duracell Bunny on speed. You whip your head to look towards the source of the noise. It’s too dark to make out any details, but you see the dark silhouette of a bird perching on the tree just outside of your window. It taps against the glass again. You wrap your blanket tighter around your shoulders and slide off of your bed, ready to scream at the damn thing so it gets the hint and leaves you the fuck alone. Just as your feet touch the carpet, the fucking thing lets out a loud, shrill caw.

You realize then that it’s a crow. God, you haven’t seen one of those in years; they usually don’t live around here. The last time you saw one was when…

You force that thought to stop right in its tracks and rush over to the window. You slam your hand against the glass, and the impact is loud enough to shock the dumb thing. It flies off with an equally loud caw. It sounds almost indignant.

You feel a smirk creep over your face. Serves it right.

As you settle back onto your bed, the thought that you had previously stopped decides to start torturing you again. You try your best not to think about it, but you’re a shitty enough person that a part of yourself knows you deserve this punishment.

An ache starts pulling in your chest, like your heart is weighed down by an anchor, or something as equally heavy and cumbersome. Whenever you see a crow, all you can think of are those warm summers when the sun would beat down on your back and you’d find laughs spilling out of your mouth without permission at the sight in front of you.

In your memories, you see Dave Strider, fourteen-years-old and made up of lean muscle and awkward limbs that he would still need a few years to grow into fully. Crows surround him, all cawing impatiently, vying for the chicken sandwich in his backpack. He swears loudly as he swings a stick at them, trying to get them to leave him the fuck alone.

“Stupid feathery assholes,” he’d always complain once he finally shooed them away.

You tear yourself out of the memory. You miss him, and you hate yourself for it.

A short chime comes from your computer, and you look down at the screen. Oh. She finally responded. Took her long enough.

TT: My apologies for keeping you waiting, Karkat.  
TT: Kanaya was telling me about her day, and I forgot to check my messages while she was talking.  
TT: She hasn’t left for dinner yet, actually. She just went to the bathroom, but I’ll be sure to relay your message to her once she comes back. I’m certain she’d love to talk to you as well.

Yeah; you fucking figured.

CG: DON’T GIVE ME THAT HORSESHIT, LALONDE. YOU DON’T FEEL SORRY AT ALL.  
CG: A METEOR COULD FALL ON YOU RIGHT NOW AND YOU WOULDN’T GIVE EVEN A FRACTION OF A SHIT PROVIDED YOU WERE TALKING TO MARYAM.  
TT: Well, you’re right about the first part, at least. I figured it was the most polite thing to say.  
TT: But I can never pull the metaphorical wool over your eyes, Karkat. You’re simply too astute.  
CG: SINCE WHEN DO YOU CARE ABOUT BEING POLITE?  
TT: If you want to pin the blame on someone, I believe Kanaya is the most viable suspect.  
TT: She says hello back, by the way. She misses you.  
TT: And while this isn’t a direct translation, what she’s currently saying implies that you should probably message her too while you’re online.  
CG: OKAY, YOU HAVE A POINT.  
TT: I try.  
TT: Now, is there something in particular you want to talk about? I know you must be bored, but I’m honestly surprised that you didn’t decide to watch a movie instead.  
TT: I’m certain there’s at least one romantic comedy that scored below 50% on Rotten Tomatoes that you haven’t watched yet.  
CG: I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW THAT THOSE CRITICS WOULDN’T KNOW ENJOYABLE CINEMA IF IT CRAWLED UP THEIR ASS AND RAISED AN ENTIRE FAMILY THERE.

Ok, you know that most of the things you watch are objectively pretty awful, but like hell you’re going to admit that to Rose. 

CG: AND CAN’T I JUST MESSAGE YOU FOR THE SAKE OF CHATTING FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE, LALONDE? NOT EVERYTHING HAS TO HAVE SOME ULTERIOR MOTIVE RELATING TO MY PATHETIC NEED FOR ATTENTION AFTER NOT BEING HUGGED ENOUGH AS A KID, OR WHATEVER YOU WANT TO ACCUSE ME OF HAVING TODAY.  
TT: I wasn’t implying that at all. I was merely asking an innocent question out of simple curiosity.  
CG: BULLSHIT.  
TT: Well?  
CG: I JUST SAW A CROW OUTSIDE MY WINDOW.  
TT: Oh.  
TT: I see.  
TT: I’m sorry, Karkat.  
TT: No sarcasm or horseshit intended.  
CG: I MISS HIM.  
TT: I know.

Well, now that you’ve started, you can’t stop thinking about him. It’s like the floodgates have opened, and though you tried pushing them shut again, the water just overtook you and swept you away. You have no hope of escaping.

As much as it hurts, you allow it to happen.

.

You’re eleven years old, and you already know that this next month is going to be the worst month of your life before you even step out of the car. Your dad insisted that you should actually do something this summer besides sit inside watching movies all day, so despite how much you protested, he signed you up for some dumb month-long summer camp out in the middle of the woods.

To make your life just that much worse, Terezi somehow managed to convince him to let her come with him to drop you off. She spent a solid eighty percent of the car ride just laughing at you. By the time you pull into the parking lot in front of the camp entrance, you scramble out of the car just to get away from her obnoxious screeching for a few precious minutes. You’ve heard nails against chalkboards that sound more pleasant than her.

She may be annoying as hell, but that’s never stopped that weird warm feeling from spreading through your chest whenever she grins at you.

The last thing your dad (and Terezi) told you was that your main goal here is to make at least one friend. After looking around the camp and seeing the other twenty-nine boys you’re going to have to spend every waking moment with for the next thirty days, you have a hunch that making friends will be impossible. Not a single one has even talked to you yet, but you already think they’re all annoying.

As much as you may want to make a friend so you don’t have to be alone, or worse, cling to the counselors the whole time, you just don’t have much hope. Well, actually, you don’t have any hope at all.

The first thing the counselors have you all do is sit in a circle and introduce yourselves. It’s bearable enough, but it takes a turn for the worse when a certain little punk shares.

You didn’t pay much attention to him at first, but before he even opens his mouth, you decide you don’t like him. He sits as if he’s king of the campground, his back straight and his chest puffed out. Seriously, who is he trying to impress? And on top of that, he wears a pair of ridiculous looking pointy sunglasses that take up half of his small face. He keeps having to tilt his head up so they don’t slip down the bridge of his nose. It only makes him look dumber.

“’Kay, so what am I supposed to say?” He asks. One of the counselors opens his mouth to answer, but the kid starts talking again before he can say anything. “Oh, right. Name, age, hometown, and what would I do if I was invisible for a day?” He mulls over that last one like it’s the dumbest thing he’s ever heard. At least you two can agree on something.

The counselors nod, and the other kids watch him expectantly. The kid goes silent, and something tells you that he’s doing it just to be annoying. You barely resist the urge to growl at him to hurry up already.

“Name’s Dave, eleven years old, from Houston. Yeah, pretty awesome, I know.”

Several of the other boys gawk at him like he just grew an extra head and tried to eat the kid next to him who keeps trying to subtly pick his nose (newsflash, Jerry or whatever your name is! It isn’t working!). “You mean Texas!?” One of the other boys asks. You think his name might be Frankie, or maybe Gerald, but you didn’t care enough to pay attention.

“Shit, what gave it away? Thought I wasn’t wearing my cowboy boots today.” He looks down at his shoes, turning his feet over to get a good look at them. They’re just regular sneakers.

He swore in front of the counselors? You’re not even brave enough to do that. You glance over at the counselors, and sure enough, they’re all scandalized as hell. They’re all high schoolers, so you know they probably say shit just as bad on a regular basis, but it’s different when it comes out of a kid’s mouth. The other campers alternate between sniggering and staring at Dave like he’s some kind of god.

“Dave!” One of the counselors finally manages to snap. “That kind of language isn’t allowed here.”

“Wow, didn’t think Illinois was that lame,” Dave replies coolly.

What an idiot.

“Anyways,” another counselor says with a sigh, “what about the last question?” He says it with a hesitance that tells you just how wary he is of the answer.

“If I was invisible for a day?” He shrugs. “I dunno. Just seems like a kind of pervy question to me. I’d probably just sit on the futon in me and my bro’s apartment and play video games. Maybe try to get the jump on him.”

The counselors look like they want to say something again, but they exchange glances and decide to just give up and move on with the icebreaker. You half-listen to the other responses, and none of them are nearly as annoying as Dave’s. Boring, but better than flat out moronic.

Finally, it’s your turn to go. You staunchly decide not to answer like a complete moron. “My name is Karkat Vantas. I’m eleven years old, I live in Woodridge, and…” you pause. What would you do if you were invisible? 

Better yet, what kind of question is that?

The campers start to snicker, and a few of the counselors give you the same annoyed look that Dave just got. “I’m sorry you don’t like the question, Karkat,” the head counselor answers. “You don’t have to answer it then.”

“What are you talking abou—“ You cut yourself off once you realize why he just said that to you. Shit. You didn’t mean to complain out loud.

This is seriously going to be the worst month of your life.

.

By dinnertime you’ve officially decided that every single person at this camp is stupid as hell. Most of the counselors are at least halfway competent, but the other campers are so idiotic that they cancel out any sort of intelligence that may be present. All of the campers are somewhere between ten and twelve, so you guess they have some sort of excuse, since everyone your age is automatically a moron.

But the stupidest person of all is Dave, without a doubt. The other boys, even the oldest ones, are completely star-struck by him, and he just eats all of it up. He talks back to the counselors, doesn’t listen to them when they tell him to take his sunglasses off inside, and generally just says some of the most ridiculous things you’ve ever heard. You’re certain to tell him that every opportunity to get, and he takes it as a sign to make fun of you. All it does is make you angry, and then the counselors come over and you get in trouble for not using your “forest voice,” whatever that’s supposed to mean.

The food sucks, too. Everything in the cafeteria is log themed; you sit on log benches in a giant cabin made of logs; even the bowls are shaped like logs. You’re pretty certain that it makes the goopy mashed potatoes they shoved inside of the log-bowls taste even worse. There’s also chicken and peas on your plate (surprise! It looks like the inside of a tree! Hilarious!), both of which are so overcooked that you can barely eat without throwing up.

You wish you could call Terezi and complain to her about how awful this place is, but the counselors have a strict no-technology rule. They confiscated everyone’s phone at the very beginning so you all have, “more opportunity to enjoy nature.”

Once dinner ends, you have to stick around to help clean up. It’s your punishment for getting so many strikes against you – which you pretty much accumulate anytime you open your mouth. Once you get three strikes, you have to face what they call a “treebulation.” Even thinking of that pun makes your face scrunch up in disgust.

Today, your treebulation is helping clean up after dinner. Your only solace is that Dave also has to suffer. Thankfully, you manage to stay on the other side of the cafeteria from him for as long as you have to be in the same room.

The moment you’re free, you dash over to the camp library, take a couple of interesting looking books, and rush back to your cabin. You spend half the night underneath your blankets tearing through the novels, reading by the bright beam of your flashlight. It’s easily the best part of the whole day.

.

The first two weeks of camp don’t go any better than the first day. If anything, they’re even worse. The other campers still follow Dave around like puppies. This would be ok if Dave didn’t follow you around everywhere you went.

You don’t even know why! The only reason you can think of is that he enjoys watching you suffer, because he’s a sadistic dick. Every single thing you do gets some inane response from Dave, and a series of laughs and idiotic taunts from the peanut gallery. So you end up getting mad and attempt to yell some sense into Dave’s thick skull, and then you’re not using your forest voice again and the next thing you know you have to suffer through another treebulation.

You hate the very word. You wish it was a living thing so you could brutally murder it.

Every day is basically the same. You all wake up, get dressed, and shuffle over to the cafeteria for a mediocre breakfast. Dave and his horde usually sit near you, and most days he’ll toss pieces of cereal at you until you finally look at him. He’ll crack some dumb joke (and they’re all basically the same joke; something about how normally the point of the game is to catch it in your mouth, not your eye), and then you, like a sane person, will tell him off. That’s your first strike.

Then come the two morning activities. These tend to change; sometimes you have a choice of different outdoor activities. On those days you normally play volleyball and try your hardest not to get hit by the ball when it flies towards you. Sometimes the activity is coordinated by the counselors, and you’re all forced to interact with each other. That almost always results in another strike. Then comes lunch, which is basically a repeat of breakfast except with fewer food items thrown at you. It still ends with Dave looking at you with a shit-eating grin and trying not to laugh his ass off. So you go into what he calls, “a vintage shitfit,” and your only solace is that he always ends up with a strike as well.

The afternoon activities are generally something like arts and crafts, hiking, or some trip down to the river. It’s varying levels of awful depending on the specific activity. But after that comes the best part of the day: free time. The moment it starts, you always make a beeline to the library and hole up there tearing through novel after novel until one of the counselors comes in and drags you out to dinner.

Dinner is pretty much exactly like lunch, so by the end of the day you’re almost guaranteed to have another treebulation stacked against you. You’ve actually grown used to cleaning up and doing the dishes now; even if you didn’t have to do it, you still probably would. It means that you can skip out on as much “campfire time” as possible, which is basically a gift from heaven.

Campfire time is, without a doubt, one of the worst things you’ve ever experienced. Everyone gathers around this tiny-ass campfire and roasts stale marshmallows. You all make s’mores, but the chocolate is never melted fully and the graham crackers are already crumbling away by the time you get to them. But not even your shitty s’more is enough to save you from the horrible, off-key screeching the counselors pretend is singing that they try to lead. All of the songs are dumb, and they’d suck even if a professional choir sang them. And the other campers are far from anything approaching somewhat musical. Your only reprieve is that Dave (who still insists on sitting near to you, if not next to you) never joins in their caterwauls. You’re the only two who never do.

Then finally, after that last round of torture, you’re allowed to slink off to your cabin to go to bed. You couldn’t care less about the boys you share the cabin with. At least they’ll shut up when you growl at them to, and they’re some of the few who don’t trail after Dave everywhere he goes. They’re probably your favorite people here.

But tonight, you can’t sleep. Your cabinmates are all fast asleep; the only sound comes from the owls outside and the gentle sound of pages turning as you continue to read. You already tried to go to sleep, but it didn’t work at all. You hoped that another chapter would help tire you out, but it didn’t. Not that you’re really invested in this book – the heroine is kind of an idiot, and you’re pretty sure that the log bowl you ate your oatmeal out of this morning had more personality than her love interest.

You finish the chapter and fold down the corner of the page so you can pick up from the same place tomorrow. You tuck your book and your flashlight underneath your pillow and let your head flop down onto it, careful to avoid the bulges that don’t look suspicious at all. You squeeze your eyes shut and hope for sleep to come.

After what must be twenty minutes of agony, you give up and head outside.

The camp is actually pretty peaceful at night. The cafeteria looms off in the distance, only a little ways away from the main meeting area that you never use. The other cabins are spread around the camp, and they all look the fucking same. They’re exactly what you imagine Abe Lincoln’s log cabin looked like; complete with the green trim and the walls made entirely of actual logs. You’d like it if you didn’t hate this place so much.

You walk over to the edge of the camp, careful to avoid stepping on any sticks or twigs as you sneak past the counselor’s cabin. By some stroke of luck, you silently make your way through the campground and over to the edge of the forest. There’s a small, grassy hill right before the woods sprout up again. You sit down and bring your knees to your chest.

You really like looking at the stars. Despite living in the suburbs, the city lights make it difficult to pick out constellations. But out here, the sky is absolutely covered in stars. There’s one constellation in particular you’re looking for. It’s hard to find this time of year, but with the sky this dark, you should be able to see it…

“Star-gazing isn’t that romantic when you do it alone,” a voice says. It does not cause a startled, embarrassing screech to come careening out of your mouth. Not at all. Nor does it cause you to tense up and immediately back away from the direction of the voice, hands digging into the soft earth below you.

It takes you a few moments for your eyes to adjust enough to recognize who’s in front of you, but your stomach curls with disgust when you realize that it’s Dave. It’s almost pitch-black outside, but he’s still wearing his stupid sunglasses. How can he even see anything?

“What do you want?” You snarl, injecting as much disdain in your voice as humanly possible. He’s already spent the whole day treating you like an idiot – does he really need to do it even without the audience behind him laughing and cheering? Does he just enjoy watching you suffer that much?

He probably does.

You wish he would just disappear into thin air so you’d never have to see him again.

“To join you on this romantic night, of course,” he replies in a dead monotone. You know he’s saying that just to get a rise out of you, but you won’t let him win this time. You refuse to.

But then he moves over and plops down next to you. The anger swirling within you starts to give way to confusion.

“Why are you even awake?” You ask. “It’s like….shit, I don’t even fucking know. Midnight?”

“Close. It’s 12:25, actually.”

You give him a look, despite the possibility that he can’t see it. “How do you know that?”

He shrugs. “Good at guessing the time.”

“Well, congrat-u-fucking-lations. Why are you up.”

He shrugs. Again. Ugh. “Couldn’t sleep. Too busy thinking about how cool I am.”

“Really? I just thought you realized what a colossal douchebag you are.”

“Nah.”

You open your mouth, ready to tell him just to get out of your sight, but he cuts you off before you can.

“Are you like, looking at constellations or some shit?” He asked. “I don’t get any of that stuff. They all look the same to me.”

“They do not all look the same!” You reply, offended. You only know some constellations because your dad likes to point them out whenever you drive through the countryside late at night, but even then, it’s obvious to anyone with eyes that there are differences between the stars. Then again, maybe he just can’t see anything. “if you were actually able to see, maybe you would know that!”

“I can see just fine,” he says, a slight frown on his face. “I can see that you must be one of those people who believes in star signs. Do you avoid water because astrology.com told you to stay away? Do you get crushes on people based on how compatible their star sign is with yours?”

“No!” You practically do not squawk at all. You only did that once, okay? And that was six months ago; you’re different now. You’re more mature. “Can’t you just focus on the stars themselves, you dumbass!?”

He goes quiet, considering that for a moment. He raises a hand and points it to a small cluster of stars near the middle of the sky. “What’s that one part of?” He asks.

You eye him warily, waiting for him to make this into some dumb joke. But he doesn’t. He just turns to you, and you’re pretty sure that he’s giving you an expectant look. You debate just telling him that it’s part of fuck-off-iticus, the newest sign discovered by astronomers, but for some reason, you don’t. “It’s Libra,” you say. You point to where it begins and ends, tracing the shape out with your finger. “The scales.”

You think Dave might be squinting up at the sky, trying to see the pattern, but you actually have no idea if he is or not. After a few moments, he starts to nod slowly. “I see it. That’s pretty cool. Any others you can point out?”

You roll your eyes and snort. “Of course.” You mostly know the Zodiac constellations, but there are a few others that you remember.

“Oooh, what about mine? The, uh. The one for December….I think it has something to do with horses? There’s some shirtless horse dude.”

“Is that seriously all you can remember about it?”

“Hey, my eyes were just drawn to the naked horse dude. He was like a magnet. I couldn’t look away.”

“You’re an idiot,” you kindly inform him, but you cycle through the typical representations of the Zodiac in your head. You know it sounds familiar, but Dave’s dumb description makes it hard to work with. Before long, you think you figure out what he was trying to describe. “…Sagittarius,” you tell him, “the archer, not the fucking horse dude.”

“Who said anything about fucking a horse dude?”

Something in your expression must show just how pissed off you are, because he starts snickering and just won’t fucking stop. You give him a rough shove, pushing him off balance and onto the ground. He just keeps laughing into the grass.

“You stupid, annoying, obnoxious pimpled asshole!” You shout at him. You wish you could come up with a better insult, and you know that maybe one day you’ll be able to, but for now, that’s really all you can work with. You’ve heard some pretty colorful curses from your dad – maybe you’ll be able to make those up when you’re older, too.

If you still know Dave by then (which you kind of hope you don’t), you could always use them on him. 

When he finally stops laughing, he sits back up, reaching underneath his sunglasses to rub at his eyes. “Ok, ok, shit. I’m done.”

You cross your arms over your chest. You don’t believe him at all. “Oh, really?”

He raises his hands in surrender. “Promise. Now, which one is…uh…”

“Sagittarius?”

“Yeah. That one. My constellation.”

You’re about ready to snap at him about how it isn’t his constellation, just one that happens to be associated with his birthday, but you decide against it at the last second. You have a feeling that if you did tell him that, you’d just end up witnessing a repeat of the last five minutes. You’d rather not go through that again. 

Instead, you point up to the sky, careful to trace out the pattern with your hand. This one is one of the harder ones to make sense of, but when you tilt your head, it’s easier to see. Out of the corner of your eye, you see Dave mimicking your movements. At first it seems like he’s just making fun of you, but there’s a steadiness to his movements that tells you that…he’s actually serious. He’s actually interested.

He asks you to show him a few more, so you do. You point out the rest of the Zodiac that you can see, and a few other constellations that you can remember. Though he continues to interject his stupid jokes in the middle of your sentences, he shuts up when you push him, so you reach some sort of weird truce. He starts tracing fake constellations in the sky, ones that are supposed to look like birds, cameras, cars, and the really ugly faces some of the counselors make whenever you get in trouble. A few of them cause you to laugh.

Eventually the sky starts to grow lighter, and you feel a sense of panic wash over you. You weren’t supposed to stay up this late, but you lost track of time. Once you realize that, the fatigue hits you all at once. You could just go to sleep right here and not care at all.

You must have started falling asleep, because the next thing you know, Dave has you by the arm and is leading you back to the cabins. “Come on, man. Can’t let the counselors know that we’re too cool for rules. Don’t wanna get stuck scrubbing toilets again,” he says with a yawn.

You nod. “That was awful,” you grumble,” I’m pretty sure someone peed on the toilet itself on purpose.”

“Yeah, probably.”

He leads you back to your cabin (how does he know where it is? It strikes you as weird, but you’re too tired to give it any more thought), and gives you a brief wave as he sleepily trudges back to his own. You shuffle inside and practically collapse on your bunk, falling asleep almost instantly.

The morning alarm rings far too early for your own sanity, but you drag yourself out of bed anyways. Camp is particularly awful for the rest of the day, but strangely enough, interacting with Dave is the most tolerable part of the day.

.

Dave still hangs around you everywhere you go, but his presence quickly becomes easier for you to deal with. His peanut gallery is still annoying as fuck, but after the day one of his fanboys serves you a volleyball that was without a doubt aimed at your face, you notice them hanging around Dave way less than before. 

When you ask him what happened to his adoring fans, he just shrugs and tells you that he decided to retire from stardom for a little bit. 

The two of you still get some kind of treebulation every single day, but even those become easier to deal with. Dave tries to make a game out of them; you race against each other to see who can clean up after dinner the fastest, or you each try to see who can make the ugliest shape out of pancake batter before the counselors notice, just to name a few.

Whenever you two have to scrub toilets, you just try to do it as fast as possible. It’s too gross of a punishment. There’s no way to make it enjoyable. 

Some nights the two of you sneak out to try to spot more constellations. On one of those nights Dave admits to you that he didn’t even know there were this many stars in the sky, and you tell him that that’s the saddest damn thing you’ve ever heard. So you try to name different stars and tell him as much as you can about them.

You also have to constantly correct him that you’re telling him about astronomy, not astrology. You’re pretty sure he confuses the two on purpose just to piss you off.

The last two weeks of camp seem to fly by. Before you know it, the last day of camp is here. You do one last group activity all together, which, to your horror, is another round of group sharing. The counselors ask you all to name one thing you learned from your time at camp.

Most of the answers are just as boring as the boys who give them. They learned how to tie a knot, wow! Or how much mosquito bites hurt, how funny! 

Ugh.

When it’s Dave’s turn to go, you fully expect him to say the stupidest thing he could possibly think of. But instead, he pauses, looking almost…thoughtful. Legitimately thoughtful, too.

“I learned that Sagittarius is supposed to be an archer, not just a shirtless horse dude,” Dave says, his voice completely serious. The other boys snicker while the counselors just look completely lost. There was one night when you all went star-gazing together, but they only pointed out the most basic constellations, like the Big Dipper or shit like that. But at this point, they know better than to ask Dave how he knows that, so they just move on.

Finally, it’s your turn to go. You don’t think too hard about your answer.

“I learned that I was actually able to accomplish the one goal my Dad wanted me to reach here.”

“And that was?” One of the counselors asks, curious. The others watch you expectantly, and you feel your face burn in embarrassment. Why did you have to say that? You’re not giving them the satisfaction of knowing.

It takes about two minutes of pointed silence before the counselors give up and move on.

After you finish that final round of torture, your cell phones are given back to you all, and you’re dismissed to finish packing up your cabins and finally escape this hellhole. Your Dad is already waiting in the parking lot for you, so you grab your stuff and head out.

‘Hey, Karkat,” a voice says when you’re almost at the parking lot. You already know who that voice belongs to, but you turn around anyways. You raise an eyebrow at Dave, waiting for him to continue whatever he was going to say.

“I. Uh.” He looks down at his feet, and you notice something crumpled up in the fist hanging at his side. “Think you’re actually pretty fun to hang out with, even if you’re really crabby and loud. So I figured that maybe we could keep talking?” He holds out his fist to you, revealing a crumpled napkin with his messy handwriting all over it.

You take the napkin and read the single word on it. “What is this supposed to mean?” You ask, shoving it in front of his face. “That’s not even a word!”

“It’s my chum handle,” Dave says, “you know, for the internet? So we can message and stuff?”

Oh. Well, now you feel like an idiot. “I don’t know what that is, but I do know that I don’t have one.”

“Pesterchum. It’s a messaging…thing. You could ask your dad if he’d let you make an account. I’d give you my phone number, but this piece of shit is almost always out of minutes,” he replies.

“No promises, but I’ll ask. And if not…” you rip a piece of the napkin off and rummage around in your backpack to find a pen. Once you do, you scribble down your cell phone number and give it to him. You’re not supposed to give out your cell phone number to anyone since it’s only meant for emergencies, but you don’t remember your house phone’s number and you don’t really care right now if your dad gets mad at you. “That’s my number,” you tell him, because you’re not entirely sure if he’d be able to figure it out himself.

He glances down at the piece of paper, and you see him clearly trying to fight a smile. He puts it in his pocket and looks back at you. “Sweet. So…talk to you later?”

You nod. “Yeah. Talk to you later.”

You spend the entire car ride back trying to convince your Dad to let you get a Pesterchum account. After an hour and a half and a short period of time that you definitely did not spend tearing up, he agrees.

.

You know that Dave isn’t leaving to go back to Texas for another week, so you figure that he should be online pretty soon after you get home. You wait a few hours (just to be safe) before downloading Pesterchum on your dad’s computer. You then spend another hour trying to figure out a good handle for yourself, but you give up and ask your dad for help. His suggestions aren’t that bad, so you end up using one of them. It sounds badass.

You type in Dave’s handle and send a request. It’s accepted in less than a minute, and right after that a message shows up on your screen.

TG: sup  
TG: assuming that this is the person that i think it is  
TG: dont remember giving my chum handle out to any strangers so should be safe  
TG: but just in case  
TG: asl  
CG: WHAT?  
TG: age/sex/location  
CG: DAVE. IT’S KARKAT. REMEMBER? WHO YOU SAW AT CAMP THREE HOURS AGO?  
CG: OR ARE YOU REALLY THAT BRAIN DAMAGED THAT YOU FORGOT WHO I WAS?  
TG: i mean yeah i remember but just to be safe  
TG: asl  
CG: THIS IS STUPID.  
CG: YOU’RE STUPID.  
TG: im waiting  
CG: FINE.  
CG: 11, BOY, WOODRIDGE.  
TG: k now were good  
TG: so  
TG: sup

You don’t know how it happens, but you end up spending the next two hours talking to him. You only get off the computer because it’s dinner time and you know that your dad will be pissed if you don’t join him. After dinner, you curl up on the couch with a new book your dad bought you as he watches some boring documentary on tv.

The next morning, your dad chuckles when he sees you walk down the stairs. You give him a weak glare. “What?”

He grins. “You didn’t sign off of the computer last night. Your friend seemed pretty upset when I told him that you had already gone to bed.”

Your eyes widen. Shit. You thought you did. You slip into the chair across from him, sinking down into your seat. Maybe if you curl up enough, you can hide behind the pancakes in front of you.

But when you peek over the edge, frowning, all your dad does is smile.

“I’m glad you made a friend, Karkat,” he tells you.

.

Dave returns to Texas, but the two of you only end up talking more after that. He’s almost always online, and since you prefer staying indoors most days, it works out pretty well. He’s just as ridiculous over text as he is in person, and half of the stuff he says is complete crap, but you don’t mind that much. He’s pretty fun to talk to, and he starts to learn when to back off.

He still thinks your vintage shitfits are some of the funniest things he’s ever experienced, and he reminds you pretty much every chance he gets.

You talk less once school starts up, but you start learning more about him. You learn that he lives with his brother in a shitty, cramped apartment full of random fake weapons his brother likes to collect in Houston. All of the schools around him either suck or are too expensive, so he’s been homeschooled since he was 7. That explains why he’s so fucking weird. 

You learn that he practically worships the ground his brother walks on, even if you think he’s kind of a creep. He thinks irony is the coolest thing ever, but after asking your dad, you figure out that Dave isn’t even using the word correctly. He just finds dumb and shitty things funny.

You find out that he doesn’t have that many friends. There’s this kid named John that he talks about a lot who lives a few blocks away from him. Dave calls him a complete dork, but you know that he likes him a lot more than he’s willing to admit. He’s also pretty close with his half-sisters, who are the reason why he was in Illinois in the first place. He and his brother stay with them for a couple of months every summer. He’s also friends with one of the girls that his half-sister knows; he says that the two girls, John, and himself are all good friends.

Well, he actually says that they’re tighter than a sixteen year old girl on prom night, but it means the same thing.

He ends up learning a little bit about you as well. He learns about your dad, and about the fact that you don’t really have that many friends at school. You have a few, but they’re all varying levels of insane and/or awful – Terezi supplying most of the insane, and Sollux most of the awful.

But not Kanaya. Kanaya’s okay.

As the months continue, you keep talking. You settle into a routine; after school, you hop on your dad’s computer and talk to Dave, if only for a half hour or so. Most days you talk for longer, but sometimes one of your friends wants to hang out with you, or your dad has to do something, so you can’t use it. He always tells you to stop pouting, and you always tell him that you’re not pouting, he’s just going blind.

Dave sends you a DVD for your birthday. You haven’t heard of it before, but he thinks that you’d like it. It’s called Hitch, and though you’re a little wary of it at first, you like Will Smith enough to give it a try.

It’s one of the best movies you’ve ever watched.

Maybe that’s why you end up agreeing to go back to that wretched summer camp again. 

Despite the sinking feeling that takes root in your chest as your dad’s car pulls up to the edge of the camp, you’re actually pretty hopeful that this camp won’t be nearly as shitty as the last one. You have one less asshole to deal with, but you also know that the ex-asshole’s habit of swearing literally all the fucking time has rubbed off on you. You can already imagine the sheer amount of treebulations the two of you are going to be buried under.

When the car finally rolls to a stop, you throw open the door and rush outside, shrugging your backpack onto your shoulders. You stand on your tiptoes and look around the parking lot, trying to spot the car that matched Dave’s description. He called it the most ironically hilarious soccer mom van ever made. seriously every time i see that thing i expect billy and his whole team of little shits to come pouring out of the back.

It’s not actually as obnoxiously bright orange as you imagined, but it’s still pretty goddamn ugly. You walk close enough to be able to see inside the car, only to see that it’s completely empty. Huh. He must already be inside the camp, even though he said he would wait for you. You make a mental note to chew him out for that later.

When you go through check in, you find out that even though a lot of the boys were here from last year, the counselors are completely new. At least they won’t keep an eye on you constantly like the last ones did. The fucking treebulations are still a thing, though. You can’t believe this.

Your dad leaves once you get your cabin assignment, figuring that you can unpack on your own. Which, yeah, of course you can! You’re not a baby. One of the counselors mentions that only one of your cabinmates has arrived so far, and that he should still be unpacking in there.

You’re just glad that you scowl after you turn your back to them. You hope it isn’t fucking Jerry. Or Gerald. Or worse, Adam. God, you fucking hate Adam, that shitsponge. 

So when you enter your cabin and see Dave standing next to one of the bottom bunks, scowling at the pile of sheets on top of the ratty thing, you practically sag with relief. He hasn’t noticed you come in, so you grunt out a, “hey.”

He jumps, and lets out this incredibly embarrassing yelp. When he spins around to face you, his scandalized look makes you burst out laughing. He sputters indignantly, and takes off his stupid sunglasses to stare at you with wide eyes. Your laughter dies down as you realize that, holy shit, he really wasn’t joking when he told you that his eyes are red.

“Holy shit, Karkat!?” Dave says. “We’re roommates!?”

You walk towards him and drop your stuff next to his feet, glaring up at the top bunk like it just killed your dog. You like the relative privacy the top bunk provides, but making your bed is one of the worst things you’ve ever experienced. You’re not quite ready to submit to that kind of torture yet.

“No, Dave. I’m just here with all of my stuff because I wanted to say hi and lug all of this shit around even more.”

He grins. “Dude. This is gonna be so sweet.”

And he’s right. The two of you quickly become inseparable. The boys who you went to camp with tend to watch the two of you with confused stares whenever you pass by, but the new campers just accept that the two of you are a pair. Some of his peanut gallery is still around, but for some reason, they don’t follow him like they did last summer.

Sure, Dave can still be pretty annoying and stupid, but you feel comfortable around him. He still thinks that you getting upset is the funniest thing ever, but he becomes more careful not to make you legitimately upset after he shows you a dead deer he saw in the woods and you stop being able to breathe.

Yeah, that fucking sucked. Your heart beat so rapidly that you thought you were going to die; it felt like you were suffocating. Everything was too small, too tight. You were vaguely aware of Dave’s worried shouts and curses, yelling something about needing to find a counselor, but all you could see was red blood and lifeless eyes.

Eventually you managed to calm down, but he wouldn’t stop apologizing for two days straight after that. He stopped saying it once you screamed at him to shut up, but he still tried to make it up to you whenever he could. He took on more of the work whenever you both had a treebulation to deal with (which you still did, all of the fucking time). On the days when meals featured something other than complete garbage, he gave you half of whatever was actually decent on his plate.

Things settle down soon enough, and the two of you are back to sneaking out to the hill at the edge of camp late at night. You’ve spent months learning new constellations, so you both sit on the grass as you trace out more shapes in the sky.

The “constellations” that Dave makes up are even stupider than they were last year, but a few of them manage to make you laugh.

The activities themselves become more bearable, too. You’re stronger than you were last year – not much taller, but you can hit the volleyball harder than you could before, and it takes you longer to get tired on hikes. You’re still absolute shit at anything even vaguely related to arts and crafts, but you’ll take what you can get. 

There are crows around the camp, and it strikes you as a little odd that you didn’t notice them last year. One day one of them flies off with Dave’s lunch when you’re on a hike, and he spends the rest of the day complaining about it. You’re too busy laughing at him to feel any sort of sympathy.

There are things you notice about Dave that you didn’t before, and you’re not entirely sure if they’re new habits, or if you just never cared to see them before. The biggest one is that he never shuts up. It’s quiet, but even when he thinks he’s alone, he starts to mutter to himself. From what you can tell, it’s all long-winded rambles about absolutely nothing important, but you guess he just hates silence or something. 

He thinks a lot of the other campers are tools, but that doesn’t stop him from trying to prove himself all the time. You’ve always known he’s an attention hog and that he has a huge competitive streak, but this is just ridiculous. You make sure to tell him as much.

Sometimes when you’re on your own the other campers pick on you, taunting you about how you’ll probably die if Dave’s away from you for longer than five minutes. You scream and kick at them until they either leave you alone or one of the counselors comes to drag you away. No matter how hard you try, they never seem to drop it.

You find out from Dave that sometimes, they pick on him as well. He doesn’t say how it ends most of the time, but sometimes you spot him sporting a new bruise on his cheek, and that tells you all you need to know. Sometimes you spot one of the other campers with a black eye, and you make sure to give Dave a solid fist-bump.

He does the same to you whenever you manage to land a good hit in, though.

At least now you understand why the peanut gallery doesn’t hang around him anymore.

Camp flies by much faster than you even thought possible. Before you know it, you’re sitting in that damn circle again, all sharing one thing you learned from camp. Just like last year, most of the answers are completely boring.

This time, you go before Dave does. You steal a glance at him when you say, “I learned that camp isn’t as bad as I used to think.” The counselors, for once, grin at you proudly.

Dave sits right next to you, so naturally, he goes next. He mutters something too quietly for the others to hear. You think you can make it out though, and it makes a strange, giddy feeling pull at your chest.

“I learned that I’ll really miss this.”

.

Dave goes back to Texas almost immediately after camp, so you spend another year hopping on the computer almost every day to talk to him. You’re about to enter middle school, so your dad gets you a real phone a few days before school starts. He warns you to be careful with it, and you hold that fucking thing like it holds the secrets to the universe.

You tell Dave about the news, and within a week, he has an actual phone as well. You get in trouble for texting him in class all the time. Terezi makes fun of you endlessly, and whenever Kanaya spots you looking at your phone, she gets this weird smile on her face that fills you with apprehension.

Sollux just tells you to stop being gross, and that it’s embarrassing to watch you smile at your phone so much. You tell him that his entire existence is embarrassing.

Eventually Terezi demands to talk to this, “mysterious coolkid,” as she calls him, but you’re determined not to let her anywhere near your phone. She teams up with Sollux though, and ends up scribbling down his number on her hand before cackling madly.

A few days later, she tells you that she thinks Dave is hilarious. Dave tells you the same about her. 

You demand that since he gets to talk to one of your friends, you get to talk to one of his as well. You half-expect him to give you John’s handle, which you know is something stupid and nerdy, but instead he writes down something that seems too…gentle…to be John’s.

\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began pestering gardenGnostic [GG] \--

CG: SO.  
CG: WELL, THIS IS FUCKING AWKWARD. THANKS A LOT, DAVE.  
CG: HE GAVE ME THIS HANDLE AND TOLD ME THAT YOU’RE ONE OF HIS FRIENDS, BUT I DON’T ACTUALLY KNOW WHICH ONE YOU ARE? I THINK YOU MUST BE ONE OF HIS SISTERS OR HIS OTHER FRIEND  
CG: GARNET? ONYX? BRONZE? I DON’T REMEMBER.  
CG: BUT YEAH. SHIT.  
CG: UH.  
CG: I’M KARKAT. DAVE’S SUMMER CAMP FRIEND.  
GG: :o  
GG: !!!  
GG: omg!  
GG: hi karkat, my name is jade! :D im friends with rose and dave!  
GG: its nice to meet you  
GG: dave talks about you a lot, hehe  
CG: WAIT, WHAT  
CG: HE DOES?  
CG: WHAT KIND OF SHIT DOES HE SAY ABOUT ME? OH MY GOD, I’M GOING TO KICK HIS SORRY ASS NEXT TIME I SEE HIM.  
GG: wait no dont!!!  
GG: he tells a lot of funny stories but not mean ones. dont worry!  
CG: SO BY FUNNY, YOU MEAN “HORRIFICALLY EMBARRASSING.”  
CG: I SWEAR BY WHATEVER THE FUCK IS UP THERE, I’M GOING TO PUNCH HIM RIGHT IN HIS ASSMUCHER FACE NEXT TIME I SEE HIM.  
GG: he was right -_- you really are preeeeeety dramatic!  
CG: WHAT. AM NOT.  
GG: are too!  
CG: SHUT UP.  
GG: you shut up! >:p

The conversation continues like that for a while. You decide that you like her.

.

A week before school lets out for winter break, Dave tells you that he’s going to spend Christmas break with his half-sisters. He’s never actually told you where they live, but you figure it can’t be that far from you.

When he gives you the name of their town, you immediately track your dad down (sitting on the couch staring at his laptop, which is exactly where you expected him to be) to ask where it is. When he tells you that it’s only a thirty-five minute drive from where you live, your mouth drops open so fast you’re almost surprised that your jawbone doesn’t fall out of your face.

Plans are made, and two days after school lets out, you find yourself with a backpack full of clothes standing in front of a house that you’ve never seen before. It’s big and fancy as hell, just like every other house in this neighborhood. You figure that this must be one of the really rich suburbs.

You stand on your tiptoes to get a better look at the piece of paper in your dad’s hand, making sure to double and triple-check the address. The last thing you want to do is completely fuck up and knock on some stranger’s door.

Your dad nods at you, and you rap a shaky fist against the door. You feel so nervous that you just want to throw up and then hide in your dad’s car, despite how stupid you know that is. You’ve spent a whole month stuck in the middle of the woods with Dave. You don’t have any reason to be nervous.

The door opens so fast that you jump back with a surprised squawk. Your dad snickers at you, and you shoot a glare at him that doesn’t shut him up at all. When you look back at the now-open door, you’re face to face with Dave. His face is lit up like Santa just dropped down the fucking chimney and buried him in expensive technology.

“Holy shit, Karkat!” He says, laughing in disbelief, “you’re here!” 

You give him a look that you hope conveys just how stupid you think he is. “Is that what you’re going to say to me every single time you see me?”

He starts chewing on his bottom lip in that way he does whenever he gets embarrassed, but still tries to save face. “Yeah, dude. Totally a tradition from now on. Some people hug, some people fist-bump, and I speak the truth.”

You roll your eyes, but you shove your bag into his arms and give your dad the obligatory hug. He asks to talk to the “adult of the house,” and you roll your eyes when Dave shouts for Bro to come.

Like a fucking ninja or some shit, the guy practically pops out of thin air. After jumping back in surprise, you cautiously creep forward to look inside the house. You conclude that he must have just jumped off of the railing of the second floor – seriously, this guy is nuts.

“Sup,” Dave’s bro says, and you can practically feel the exasperation rolling off of your dad in waves. Thankfully, Dave’s step….mother…person…comes to the door as well, and when they start up an Adult Conversation, you take it as a cue to follow Dave inside. 

Dave leads you to his room, and you spot an incredibly purple bedroom on the way over. Dave makes a huge fucking deal out of avoiding it, muttering something about creepy sisters and wizard porn or something. You’re about to ask him what the fuck he’s talking about when he swings open his bedroom door to reveal two girls sitting on his bed.

You see the resemblance. They both have the same bright, blonde hair as Dave, though their faces are rounder and their noses smaller (and, in the younger girl’s case, her eyes are much colder and sharper).

“Ooooh-em-gee, Davey!” The older one squeals, hopping off of the bed and wrapping you up in a very sudden and unwelcome hug. She squishes your face into her chest, and you struggle to get out of her grip. “He’s totes cute!”

“I am not cute!” You shout, finally getting out of her clutches. You try to glare at her, but all she does is grin at you like you’re some fucking kitten playing with a piece of yarn. “I am tough and badass!”

She just giggles. “Yeah, a total cutie.”

Dave groans. “Roxy, you’re gonna scare him off.”

“Oh, Roxy will? I thought that was my job,” the other girl says, smirking at Dave. “After all, the tendrils of the outer gods are close to my heart.”

Ah, yes. That must be Rose. She’s just as fucking weird as Dave told you.

“All right, both of you. Out,” Dave says, pointing to the door. Neither girl moves a single inch, no matter how hard Dave jabs in the direction of the door. Which he does multiple times in a row

“Aww, no introduction?” Roxy asks with a pout. “C’mon, we wanna meet him too!” She turns to face you and sticks her hand out. “Hey, cutie! I’m Roxy.”

You don’t want to shake her hand, but you have a feeling that you’re only going to have to go through more inane shit if you don’t. You take her hand and shake it roughly. “Karkat.”

“Kar…kat?” Roxy repeats. “That is actually the best name I have ever heard. Karkat. Car. Cat.” She breaks out into a laugh. You scowl at her, but it does nothing at all.

Dave throws his head back and groans again, loud enough to drown out any other sound. At least they annoy him, too.

.

His sisters aren’t actually that bad. At the very least, they’re less stupid than Dave.

He isn’t very happy to hear that.

.

Dave’s bro takes the couch in the living room, so you and Dave end up sharing the bed in the spare room. There’s supposed to be an air mattress somewhere, but you both gave up trying to look for it after wasting an hour searching for it.

You tell each other goodnight, but you feel like Dave rolls over to face you within a minute. “Hey. Hey. Karkat,” he whispers. “You awake still?”

You crack open one eye. “I just fucking laid down, Dave. Of course I’m awake. What is it?”

You think you see him blink in the darkness. He makes some weird jerky movement underneath the blanket that you think is supposed to be a shrug. “Glad you could come, bro. Even if we can’t beat off the ladies with a stick, it’s still pretty cool having you here.”

Oh. You didn’t expect him to sound so…sincere. It makes a weird tug start up in your chest. “Yeah,” you tell him quietly, “me too.”

.

You wake up shivering in the middle of the night. Your teeth chatter and you feel like your entire body is encased in a block of ice. Fuck, why does Illinois have to get so cold?

You try to tug the large quilt closer around you, making the world’s worst impersonation of a burrito, but the fabric is chilled from the air and it only makes you feel colder. You crack an eye open and, realized that you’re basically at the edge of the bed, you scoot backwards until your back runs into something incredibly solid and…

Warm.

So warm.

You roll over, trying to figure out when you put a heater in your bed. A shock of blonde hair comes into your sight, and that’s when you remember where you really are. This isn’t your house; this is Dave’s (technically). And he’s the heater that is currently in bed with you.

You wiggle away from him, careful to not wake him up. But the moment you do, the iciness sets in around you, and your shivering only increases in intensity. You’ll never be able to sleep like this.

You could go find another blanket, but there are two problems with that: one is that you have no clue where they are, and two, that would mean leaving the quilt and most likely freezing to death. You’re cold enough already without the air trying to turn you into an ice sculpture.

It might just be your brain making a bad decision due to still being half-asleep, but it seems like the best course of action now. So you carefully make your way back to him, just close enough to touch parts of his body. Dave’s curled up into himself, his arms flat against his sides. You fit your head underneath his chin, careful to stay just far enough away so you won’t be suffocated by his shirt. Your legs press against his.

His warmth seeps into you everywhere you’re touching, and it feels like a gift. You have to use all of your willpower not to wrap yourself around him like some kind of demented, useless snake.

Once you stop shivering, you’re exhausted enough that you fall asleep instantly.

In the morning, you’re woken up by a sudden shove that nearly sends you flying off the bed. You get caught in a trap made of quilt, and it takes a good few minutes for you to escape it. “What the fuck!?” You shout, pulling the quilt down from your face. You aim your glare at Dave, who stares at you like he’s never seen you before in his life.

He clears his throat, and for the second before he puts on his shades, you swear that his face is turning red. “Dude, didn’t okay the sleep cuddles. Can’t just spring that on a guy, y’know? How am I gonna get married now that I’ve been sullied?”

“I was cold, okay!?” You snap, trying not to let your embarrassment be too apparent. 

You somehow come to the agreement not to talk about it anymore, and decide that getting breakfast is a more pressing matter to attend to.

.

The next night, you start shivering before you even fall asleep. You still don’t know where the spare blankets are, and despite Dave overreacting like a total baby that morning, you still think that you might as well ask.

In a small voice, you ask, “Dave?”

He hums at you, voice thick with sleep.

You try to swallow your own embarrassment. You can do this. It’s no big deal; you’re just cold. “It’s freezing. Can I…?” You pause, hesitant.

Dave hums again. “Want me to be your heater?”

“It’s the only thing you’re halfway decent at.”

He huffs out a laugh, obviously too muddled by sleep to think of a good comeback. He straightens himself a little bit, and you take the opportunity to fit yourself into the space he created. He’s so warm that it feels almost unnatural. Did he steal part of the Texas sun or something?

Then a thought occurs to you. “You don’t have a fever, do you?” You ask warily.

“Nah. This is natural,” he murmurs.

It still takes you a while to go to sleep, but at least you’re comfortable.

You wake up to the sun streaming in through the blinds and warm breath on your neck. You think you could get used to this. A small, sleepy smile comes to your face.

You then wake up enough to bury that thought so deep in your mind that you’ll never have to face it again.

.

The next night, Dave gets into bed first and lifts up the covers, giving you an expectant look that you know is an invitation. You clamber into bed, and before long, your back is to him. Just as your breath evens out and sleep is about to take over your mind, you feel an arm wrap around your stomach. Dave’s entire face presses into the back of your neck.

Something about it causes a warm, giddy feeling to start up and send your stomach into weird flips. It feels familiar. It’s the same feeling you used to get whenever Terezi gave you that razor sharp grin of hers. You haven’t felt that in a while – since when did it go away?

You’re too tried to give it any more thought, and you drift off into sleep.

Dave acts a little off the next morning, though you can’t quite put your finger on it. He seems jumpier? And while he still insists on wearing his damn sunglasses inside, you have the weirdest feeling that he won’t look you in the eye. You’re his fucking guest, but the way he keeps disappearing to do all of these random chores he’s never had to do before sends a pretty clear message to you.

So since Dave is being a moody douche for no reason, you somehow end up in Rose’s room after lunch. The place is a complete mess, covered in worn journals and miles of yarn and half-finished knitting, which is something that you did not expect at all from her. You thought she was the type to obsessively clean anything she saw, but she’s even messier than you and Dave combined.

You just kind of stand in the doorway, waiting for her to notice you. You don’t know her well enough to barge in without a problem, and the worry that she may stick one of her knitting needles up your nose if you piss her off enough keeps you at bay.

Rose sits cross-legged on her bed, her laptop in front of her. Her eyes are completely glued to her screen, and even from here, you can see them flickering back and forth. Damn. She must read faster than you.

You cough intentionally, finally getting her attention. She whips her head over to look at you, eyebrows raised in surprise. “Karkat?” She asks. “To what do I own the pleasure of seeing you today? Did Dave send you?”

You cross your arms over your chest and huff. “Dave’s being a dumbass, so if anything, he sent me running away from him.”

A smirk flashes over her face, just brief enough that you could convince yourself that you’re just seeing things. But you’ve heard enough about her to know better than that; she’ll use anything you give her as ammunition against Dave. “Oh really?” She asks. “May I ask why?”

It’s not just that you’re petty enough to indulge her; you also kind of want someone to complain to as well. You enter her warzone of a room and she moves her laptop to let you sit on the bed. You basically collapse onto her bed with a sigh. “I don’t even know! He just started acting like I’m some disease ridden shitbag out of nowhere and now he’s avoiding me. Seriously, what the fuck?”

“Did anything out of the ordinary happen?”

You shake your head.

She tilts her head, considering the options. Her eyes alight with recognition, but when she glances back at you, something tells you that you’re not going to find out what she just realized any time soon.

Your hunch is right when she breaks eye contact to look over at the pile of books strewn across her desk. You can’t see any of them very clearly from where you are, but something about them intrigues you. Rose must catch onto this, because without hesitation, she asks you, “do you like reading, Karkat?”

“Depends on what I have to read,” you answer. You love novels, but all of the ones you have to read for class are shitty, and you hate boring, plain textbooks with a passion.

Rose gets up and goes over to the pile of books, picking through them with precision. “Not all of these are exactly quality, but how do you feel about romantic novels? I’d understand if you thought they were too girly,” she says the last word with such exasperation that you know that even if you did give a shit about what is and isn’t girly, you wouldn’t want to let her know.

But thankfully, romance is awesome, and you couldn’t give less of a fat-fingered fuck about whether or not it's girly to like romance. Besides, what does that even mean?

Rose smiles at you. “I’m glad we agree on that.”

Your eyes widen in surprise. Shit, you didn’t mean to say that out loud.

She comes back with a novel in her hands, and from the cover art alone you can already tell its some complicated, supernatural story with a lot of psychological horseshit thrown in for good measure. She offers it to you, and you warily take it. You’re not sure how weird her taste in books is, but you guess you’re going to find out.

You spend the next few hours switching between reading (and, as you discover, the book isn’t so bad) and discussing the story. Rose acts weirdly delighted when you start telling her about the painfully obvious romantic tension between Kelly and May, but at least it shows you that not all of her opinions are garbage. Only some of them.

A little later on in the afternoon, Roxy barges into the room with a loud, “Roooosie!” She stops and gapes at you when she finally realizes that Rose isn’t alone. “Oh my god, where’s Dave? Is he okay?” Is the first thing out of her mouth.

“He’s off being an idiot,” you reply.

“Doing what?”

“I don’t know, laundry or some shit? Cleaning the bathroom? I forget.”

Roxy stifles a laugh. “C’mon, Karkitty,” you scrunch your nose in disgust at the nickname, but she continues on anyways, “he’s a guest! And also like, twelve. He doesn’t even know how to do laundry!”

Rose nods. “Mother does insist on doing absolutely everything for him…as well as Bro.”

Roxy shrugs. “Yeah, I don’t get that one either. The dude’s like, twenty-five. Buuut anyways, he’s messing with you.”

So naturally, you do the logical thing and throw a shitfit.

.

That night, you’re almost asleep, curled up at the edge of the bed, when you feel a dip in the mattress. It wakes you up just enough to register the voice speaking to you.

“You awake?” Dave asks, hesitant. You grunt out a response and feel him flop down onto the bed. “Uh, yeah. I know that I was kind of being a weird dick today.” His voice is muffled, and you don’t need to look at him to know that it’s because he buried his face into his pillow.

You don’t bother to roll over to face him when you reply. “You said you had to do laundry. And guess what! Roxy told me that you don’t even fucking know how to do laundry!”

“Shit. Uh. Sorry.”

“You better be fucking sorry.” You both grow quiet, and for a second, fear rips through you. What happened? You have no idea why he would avoid you like that. Are you really just that much of a shitty friend? You know that you can be pretty miserable at times, but…he never minded before.

So you decide to ask. “What happened?”

Dave sighs into his pillow. “It’s. Dumb. Don’t worry about it.”

That doesn’t comfort you at all. You feel your worry spike, and you guess that something you do alerts him to that, because he quickly adds, “it’s nothing you did. It’s just me. I just suck.”

“Then what the fuck happened? Why won’t you tell me?”

“Dude, I don’t even really know why. I don’t know how to explain it. Maybe…maybe another time.”

You talk for a little while before falling asleep. When you wake up, you’re still both curled up on opposite sides of the bed. You nearly fall of the edge when you move, and your surprised yell wakes Dave up and causes him to fall off the bed.

After that, things mostly go back to normal.

.

On your last day with them, Roxy insists on taking you, Rose, and Dave out for ice cream. She wants to send u off in TOTES SWEET STYLE ;), and since that means free dessert, you easily agree.

You all debate over whether or not cookies n’ cream or mint chocolate chip is a better flavor, and try to ignore the fact that the air outside is colder than the ice cream you’re eating. You bicker and fight and all make fun of each other.

When you leave that day, just barely escaping from the massive hug that Roxy tackles you with before you go, something tells you that you’ll never really forget this.


	2. Chapter 2

_Oh, how I meant to tease him_  
_Oh, how I meant no harm_  
_Touching his back with my hand I kiss him._  
_I see a wasp on the length of my arm._

Rose becomes a regular contact on your Pesterchum. Roxy adds you a week later, and to your surprise, you actually talk to her on occasion.

For some reason, you introduce Rose to Kanaya through a group chat. Their initial conversation is one of the most flagrant displays of passive aggressive, snarky horseshit that you’ve ever seen. When school starts up again, Kanaya spends half of lunch one day complaining to you about her. Apparently, she finds her both aggravating and interesting at the same time.

You, Sollux, and Terezi all enter a bet with each other. Sollux bets that she’ll get a crush on the girl after a week, you bet a month, and Terezi bets two months.

You still talk to Dave every day after school, and somehow, you never get tired of it.

.

In case anyone ever doubted that you weren’t a romance expert, you can use the fact that you won the bet between you, Sollux, and Terezi as evidence. Kanaya admits it to you a little over three weeks after she starts talking to Rose.

You’re eating lunch with her when she breaks the news to you. Or, rather, she makes it completely and totally obvious to you to you after you ask her about her plans for the weekend.

“Well, I’m going over to Rose’s. It’ll be the first time we’ll meet in person,” she says, looking down at her food and trying to hide her smile. You’d be blind if you didn’t see how red her face is – actually, scratch that. Terezi is legally blind and she’d still be able to see Kanaya’s blush. Aliens could see it from galaxies away, it’s that fucking noticeable. Her blush will be the reason why intelligent life finally decides to take pity on the collective ass of every person on Earth and initiate first contact.

You realize that your train of thought just sounded eerily like something Dave would say, and it takes focusing all of your attention back on Kanaya and her crush to keep from thinking about that. Right now all you care about is Kanaya.

“Be warned, her room is a complete disaster. Don’t have an aneurysm over it.”

“I’ve been over to Terezi’s house. I believe I’ll be fine.”

She has a point.

“Though…” Kanaya continues, “I am a little nervous. Not about her relative level of cleanliness, but because this will be the first time we’ve met in person. I’m not sure what to expect.”

“Well, what you get online is pretty much what you get in person,” you tell her. “Trust me. She’s just as much of a sarcastic, weirdo goth face-to-face.”

Kanaya hesitates, clearly not soothed at all by your words. Fuck, what did you do wrong? “But what if I’m not what she expected? I spend so much time trying to think of an intelligent response to her when we message each other,” She confesses, her blush only growing more intense, “and even then, I often make a fool of myself. Without that buffer, she’ll just think I’m an idiot.”

You roll your eyes. Out of all the people you know, she has the least justification for any sort of self-esteem garbage. Leave that to the people who are legitimately awful. “Kanaya, cut the bullshit. You’re one the least idiotic people I’ve ever met. Besides, Rose is just pretentious and freaky as hell. She already likes you enough to keep talking to you. Fuck, she even likes you enough to invite you over. You’ll be fine.”

At this point, you don’t even need her to admit her feelings. It’s so obvious that it’s almost physically painful.

“You’re right, Karkat,” she says with a sigh. “I’m worrying too much. Thank you.”

“Yeah, you are.”

You make her promise you to tell you all about it when she comes back. You don’t expect to hear anything about her trip at all that weekend.

Turns out, you do hear about it, but not from the person you expected.

TG: dude  
TG: karkat  
TG: dude are you there  
TG: bro  
TG: kinda need some help rn i think my sister is trying to kill me  
TG: better respond fast before she does me in  
TG: rip dave strider killed by his half sibling because she got possessed by some body snatcher from jupiter  
CG: THERE ARE NO ALIENS ON JUPITER, DUMBASS.  
TG: do you have proof  
TG: have you ever been to jupiter  
CG: NO, BUT I’M NOT ENOUGH OF AN IDIOT TO BELIEVE THAT INTELLIGENT LIFE ASIDE FROM US EXISTS IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM. WHICH, YOU KNOW, WE SHOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO FIND BY NOW IF IT DID.  
TG: ok maybe not from jupiter but rose has totally been body snatched or mind hijacked or something  
TG: maybe by the illuminati idk  
CG: WHY ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT THIS? SHE’S NORMALLY FREAKY. SHOULDN’T YOU BE USED TO IT BY NOW?  
TG: no thats the thing  
TG: shes not freaky at all  
TG: shes being normal for once like a normal fucking 12 year old girl  
TG: with a crush bigger than the sun itself  
TG: at least im p sure she has a crush since she wont stop texting me about whoever the fuck shes hanging out with  
TG: all ‘we just read the most interesting novel’ and ‘she likes my stories dave but im just telling you this to tease you haha youll never get to read them’  
TG: jokes on her though im not interested in wizard dong

Kanaya is going to be very happy to hear this. You make a mental note to tell her, since you know she’ll be too wrapped up in her own nerves and flightiness to see how her completely obvious crush is requited.

You look back to the chat, only to see Dave piling more and more bullshit onto your screen.

TG: but i guess neither is she?  
TG: i am 99.9999% sure she has a crush on this girl  
TG: but like holy SHIT i didnt know rose bats for the other team i always thought she was gonna settle down with some dude who professionally cosplays dumbledore  
TG: hes not actually 75 years old he just pretends to be  
CG: DAVE.  
CG: I REPEAT: WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THIS? SO WHAT?  
CG: YOUR SISTER HAS A CRUSH ON HER FRIEND, WHO ALSO HAPPENS TO BE MY FRIEND, WHO ALSO HAPPENS TO BE THE LEAST SHITTY PERSON I KNOW.  
CG: AT LEAST ROSE HAS GOOD TASTE.  
TG: i mean yeah its nbd she lives in a liberal area she could go outside dressed in a rainbow flannel and wink at every girl she walks by and no one would blink twice  
TG: but still  
TG: i cant believe this  
CG: I STILL DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY YOU KEEP TALKING ABOUT THIS. NEWSFLASH: ITS NOT YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS! SO ROSE LIKES A GIRL. WOW! NO ONE GIVES A SHIT EXCEPT FOR YOU.  
CG: WHO SHE DOES OR DOESN’T LIKE DOESN’T CONCERN YOU AT ALL.  
CG: OR ME FOR THAT MATTER.  
CG: REMIND ME WHY WE’RE TALKING ABOUT THIS AGAIN?  
TG: yeah dude youre right  
TG: not like theres a gay gene or anything  
TG: sorry mr strider you have a 50% increased risk of catching the gay  
TG: tends to run in the family  
CG: AJGDFJGOFG  
CG: DAVE SERIOUSLY JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP  
CG: AT THIS POINT YOU’RE JUST BEING AN INCONSIDERATE PIECE OF DONKEY SHIT! IF ROSE WERE TO EVER SEE THIS CONVERSATION I SERIOUSLY HOPE SHE WOULD EVISCERATE YOU BECAUSE YOU WOULD COMPLETELY DESERVE IT  
CG: SO STOP BEING AN ASSHOLE ALREADY AND JUST STOP. TALKING.  
TG: uh  
TG: shit yeah sorry got a little carried away there  
TG: youre right it doesnt matter  
TG: sides im not even gay girls are awesome  
CG: STRIDER.  
TG: oh man the last name came out im in trouble now  
TG: anyways time for a totally smooth and cool topic change

You don’t bring up the conversation again after that, but it never fully leaves your thoughts. You soon learn that Kanaya has a certain soft, gentle smile reserved for the times when she’s being completely gaga over Rose, and whenever you see it, your thoughts drift back to that conversation.

It makes your stomach twist in an unpleasant way, but you’re not entirely sure why. 

.

For Dave’s thirteenth birthday, John sends him a new pair of glasses. Dave’s first reaction is to take a selfie with them on and send it to everyone he’s ever talked to, you included.

It’s a relief. They’re just regular aviators, despite whatever Dave says about them being worn by some celebrity or whatever. At least they’re not as stupid as his old ones.

You weren’t originally going to get him a gift, but guilt begins to eat away at you. You missed his birthday, but you decide to make it up by sending him the best fucking Christmas present known to mankind.

You mail him a pair of brand new, state-of-the-art headphones. The box lists a bunch of features that look like complete gibberish to you, but you’re certain that Dave will appreciate it. He knows way more about this stuff than you do.

(It also helps that you asked Roxy for advice, who then went to Dave’s brother for advice, since he actually knows what the fuck he’s talking about unlike either of you.)

And if you didn’t think Dave liked the headphones after he sent you a novel-length thank you message, Rose and Jade complaining about how he won’t shut up about them convinces you beyond a doubt.

.

You sign up for camp the day that Dave tells you that he’s going again. You’ve suffered through enough treebulations to last you several lifetimes, but you’re entering a different program starting this year. The 13 to 15 year olds have their own schedule separate from the younger kids, and the counselors are all college students. Hopefully, this means less idiotic arts and crafts and no more campfire time.

You also hope that Adam doesn’t go this year. Seriously, fuck that guy.

The first day of camp just happens to be on your birthday, and Dave won’t stop making jokes about how he isn’t going to get you a present because he’s your present this year. You call him a pompous buffoon, but everyone around you knows how excited you are to see him again. You haven’t seen him since winter break, and despite how often you message each other, it just isn’t the same.

You text each other on the entire drive to camp, and you staunchly ignore the amused looks your dad keeps giving you. What does he know? Nothing. That’s what he knows. You have every reason to be excited.

You pull into the parking lot when Dave is still about twenty minutes away, so you allow your dad to convince you to check into your room. It feels so strange to go to the opposite side of camp than the one you’re used to – you’ve never even explored this side before.

You finally go into the main meeting room so you can check in (it’s only taken you two years!), and the counselor there informs you that you’ll be spending a lot of time in this room over the next month. Huh. Makes sense why you never went here before, then.

You text Dave your cabin number the moment you get it, and go to it so you can start unpacking. They still look like Abe Lincoln lived in them once upon a time, but they also look smaller than you remember.

You figure out why when you step inside; these cabins are only meant for two people each. And the best part? It has a private shower. Hell yes! No more waiting in line while a bunch of fucknuts use up all of the hot water. Now you only have a single fucknut to deal with.

You have plenty of time before the first official meeting, so you throw your stuff onto one of the beds and sit down. You pull a book out of your backpack as you wait. It’s one that Rose mailed to you a few weeks ago to read. You suspect that the only reason why she agreed is because you promised to let Kanaya read it after you finished it. 

You’re about a chapter into the book when your phone buzzes. You silently thank whatever deity is out there that the counselors haven’t confiscated it yet as you grab it and open your new message. It’s from Dave – of course – but what confuses you is that his text only consists of a single number.

It doesn’t click until the door opens to reveal Dave, grinning like a complete moron. His hair is plastered to his forehead from sweat, and his chest heaves as he pants. The dumbass must have sprinted over here.

“Holy shit, Karkat!” You roll your eyes at just how ridiculous he is. Why are you his friend again? “Two years in a row? Dude. We’re simply meant to be roommates. Fucking fate.”

He throws his stuff onto the other bed before collapsing onto yours, letting his legs hang off the side of the bed. You look down at him at first, but end up shuffling around until you’re laying down as well. You both stare up at the ceiling.

Dave takes his sunglasses off and rubs them clean with his shirt. “Man. This is gonna be great. A cabin with my best bro _and_ a shower all to ourselves? We’re gonna beast the shit out of this.”

His words send a warmth spreading through your chest. You can feel it down to your fingertips. You snort, but all you can do is smile. “That doesn’t even make any sense.”

“We’re so awesome that we don’t even need to. Besides dude, aren’t you excited?”

“I’m excited not to have to endure Adam’s awful singing in the shower each night.”

“I’m excited to not have to hear him snore.”

“Seriously, fuck that guy.”

.

You quickly find out that treebulations are indeed still a thing, and that you and Dave still get them all the fucking time. 

But overall, camp approaches something close to enjoyable this time around. These counselors don’t have a stick wedged as far up their asses as your previous ones did, so they’re a bit more lenient. You still get in trouble for swearing, but they don’t give a shit about how loud you are provided it’s not past curfew.

There are still group activities, and though the physical activities become more difficult, they also become more rewarding. One day, the counselors take you all on a three-hour long hike along the palisades. You all inch along narrow cliff sides a few hundred feet above a literal valley of death, but the end of the trail gives you the most beautiful view of the Mississippi river. The water rushes below you, powerful and terrifyingly amazing. 

You’re allowed to kayak and swim in the river now, so you, Dave, and a few of the other campers spend a lot of your free time swimming. You splash each other until you’re sopping wet and laughing so hard you swallow mouthfuls of disgusting river water every single time Dave tries to push you under water.

The other campers, even the ones you’ve gone to camp with before, are slowly becoming more tolerable. The only thing that pisses you off is the weird looks they sometimes give you when you and Dave are together. Like something is off, but you don’t know what.

Dave always says that they just don’t understand how sweet it is to have a best bro, but he always gets a little quieter than usual when he notices.

You end up getting even less sleep each night than you did the last two summers. Some nights you sneak over to the younger kid’s campsite and sit on that same hill to stargaze. You know several dozen constellations, and to your surprise, Dave remembers most of the ones you’ve shown him. He traces out a fake constellation that looks like Adam’s foot, and once you tilt your head enough to see it, you both laugh so hard you end up choking and gasping for air. You nearly wake up the counselors and you don’t even care.

Other nights, you and Dave stay up in your cabin, talking about anything and everything until your voices go hoarse and you can’t keep your eyelids open. You share stories of just about every part of your lives.

Most nights you both manage to make it back to your own beds, but some mornings you wake up with his head on your leg or your foot pressed against his chest or something equally as ridiculous. It’s dumb enough to make both of you laugh whenever it happens.

Now that you’re older, the counselors let you keep your phones. They threaten to take it away if you use it too much during the day, but they don’t mind if someone pulls it out to take pictures or something like that. Dave insists on taking a shitload of selfies with you, even if you look like an idiot in the vast majority of them.

He tries to convince you to take one with him next to a rock that looks like a dick. He manages to snap a picture, but you steal his phone and delete the offending image before he can send it to anyone. Which he does. All the fucking time. Almost every night you get a text from someone – usually an annoying, meddling girl – telling you how cute the two of you are. Roxy calls you cute the most, but when you remember that she’d probably find a mutant rat cute, you’re a little more willing to forgive her.

That camp ends up being one of the best months of your life. But with each passing day, you feel like you’re a little closer to getting crushed. You don’t want it to end.

.

On the last day of camp, Dave disappears for a good hour. You can’t find him anywhere, and when you tell the counselors, they just snicker at you like you’re some five-year-old who can’t tie his own shoelaces.

“He’s just on the phone with his family. He’ll be back soon,” one of them tells you. Defeated, you slink back to your room and begin to pack up. Every single item you pack up feels like a stab to your chest, and it only gets worse when you look at Dave’s bed and see all the shit that he left all over the damn thing. You won’t get to see that again for another six months if you’re lucky. Another year if you’re not.

When Dave comes back to your room, his grin is so large that you half-expect him to tell you that his family won the lottery or something. It doesn’t match the mood at all, and it only makes you feel shitter. You instinctively scowl at him. What could he possibly be happy about?

A small voice tells you that he’s happy that you’re gone, and even though you push it deep into the recesses of your mind, it still tries to fucking eviscerate you. You try your best not to let that betrayal into your voice when you ask him, “and what are you so happy about?”

“Dude, you’d never believe it. I. Bro and I. We’re-“ he bites his lip, trying to calm himself down a little, “we’re moving in with Rose and Roxy.”

Your jaw practically hits the floor. What? How?

Dave’s grinning so hard you wonder if his face will rip in two. “Who gives a shit!” He replies. You realize belatedly that you didn’t mean to ask him that out loud, but you can’t bring yourself to care right now. You feel like you’re in shock or something; you can’t even react. This must be a dream. An amazing, awful tease of a dream.

“You can come over like, whenever you want. Rose’s mom loves you.”

“But what about John?” You ask warily. Dave doesn’t always talk about him, but you know that they’ve been friends for years. He’d be leaving him behind.

But Dave just keeps grinning. “Guess who’s grandma owns a bakery in Chicago.”

You blink at him. “No fucking way. You can’t be serious.”

“I am 100% serious.” He lets out a breathless laugh. “Jade and Rose are going to be over the fucking moon when they find out. They’ll finally get to meet John in person. We’ll all be able to hang out. Like, touch each other and stuff. Shit, it’s like Christmas and my birthday are both happening and we’re all in nirvana or something.”

“That was horrible,” you tell him, but you’re grinning, too.

“Dude, I don’t even care.”

.

You count down the days until Dave moves in with Rose, crossing out each completed day on a small, paper calendar above your desk. You’re basically just waiting for the time to pass, and since you still have a solid six weeks of summer left, it just seems to drag on. At least school would distract you for several hours each day if you were in it.

Your dad can tell how restless you are, and you think that’s why he keeps offering to take you and your friends out. He takes you, Terezi, Kanaya, and Sollux out to Chicago one day, and you spend your time there eating deep dish pizza and biking along the lake. Some guy paints a hideous caricature of Terezi, and since she can’t see well enough to know how shitty it is, Kanaya steps up to the plate and breaks it in half for her. The artist is scandalized, but Sollux calmly informs him how much of a shithead he is for making fun of a blind girl.

Terezi was supposed to pay him twenty bucks for the caricature, but he ends up paying _her_ twenty bucks instead. Amazing.

Days like that are when time passes the fastest, but once you’re back at home, it slows down to a painful crawl. Reading novels or watching movies (even your favorite ones! That you never get tired of!) just become irritating and pointless. You can’t keep your attention on them.

After three weeks of torture, you wake up one morning to messages from Rose, Jade and even Roxy.

TT: I have news that I think you may enjoy, Karkat.  
TT: Imagine my surprise when the doorbell rang at three in the morning only to reveal Dave on my doorstep and Bro behind him, hanging out of the side of a U-Haul.  
TT: They’re still unpacking as I send you this, but we’re having a welcome party tonight and Dave would love to have you there.

TG: heeeeeeey karkat  
TG: karkitty  
TG: oooh karcutie   
TG: i like that one lmao  
TG: ur fav bro is here!!! at our sweet place  
TG: our big happy clusterfuck fam is finally united hellz yeah  
TG: n were having a big happy clusterfuck party and since ur daves BEST BRO u gotta come

GG: karkat!!!  
GG: rose just told me that dave moved in :D we can finally all hang out together whenever we want!  
GG: johns coming in two weeks too and i bet youll really like him  
GG: well at least in your grumpy and loud way  
GG: but were having a welcome party for him and you have to come!!! the party is a surprise party and you are the biggest surprise of all  
GG: so go ask your dad if you can come right now mister

You basically stumble out of bed and nearly fall down the staircase trying to get to the kitchen. “Dad!” You yell out groggily, voice still thick with sleep.

He pops his head out from within the kitchen and watches you, confused. “You’re up early. Is something the matter?”

“Dave moved in today. Rose, Roxy, and Jade are throwing a welcome party for him and want me to come,” you explain. “Can I?”

He chuckles. “You’ve been waiting for this for a long time. Of course you can.”

You message the girls back before stumbling over to the couch and passing out for another couple of hours.

.

The most surprising thing about the welcome party is how much fun you have there. Roxy insists on having everyone wear these ugly-ass party hats that look like bird beaks. You’re pretty sure the resemblance is intentional. Bro, Dave, and Jade eat that shit up, but you and Rose remain the only sensible people in the vicinity and hate them just as they deserve to be hated.

You all eat a lot of junk food and play Dave’s favorite songs and watch some of the shittiest movies you’ve ever seen. Dave practically glues himself to your side once you sit down to watch the first movie. He touches your shoulders and arms constantly to get your attention so he can whisper his commentary to you. Honestly, he could just start talking and you’d have enough common sense to face him and listen.

Part of you thinks that it’s just because he needs proof that you’re really here with him. That this isn’t a dream.

.

With Jade’s help, you finally find the fucking air mattress. After Rose pushes all of her extra shit off of her bed, you all agree that it’s more than enough space for her and Jade to comfortably share. Dave’s bed is much smaller, and Bro has a room of his own, so they give the air mattress to you for the night.

You and Dave decide that blowing it up isn’t worth the effort, so once you’re ready for bed, you just slide under the covers with him.

You fall asleep with your backs facing each other. But in the morning, you wake up to a familiar warmth, one that you haven’t experienced in a long time. It takes you a few moments to realize that it’s because your face is practically buried in Dave’s collarbone. His chin rests on the top of your head, and his arm is wrapped tightly around you. One of his feet is hooked around the back of your ankles. You don’t think you could move without waking him up and causing a huge, embarrassing shitstorm.

But the thing is. You don’t really want to move.

.

You don’t mention it to each other the next morning, but you know something is wrong when Dave sneaks around his house acting like he just fucking killed someone. When you come out of the bathroom after brushing your teeth, you see Dave jump when he accidentally runs into Rose.

“Good morning, Dave,” she says, and then after glancing around, “is Karkat downstairs already? I hope you didn’t send him down there. Roxy’s in charge of breakfast today, and she’s not awake yet.”

Dave isn’t wearing his sunglasses for fucking once, but it also means that it’s painfully easy to read his every expression. He stares at Rose in some mixture of shock and offense. “Whoa, whoa. Back the fuck up, Lalonde. I don’t have a built in Vantas GPS system. The guy is a free bird. No chains to hold him down. He ain’t got a ring on it. He can do what he wants.”

Rose frowns. “I was only asking because he’s your guest, so it would make sense that the two of you would be together. Whenever Kanaya is over, I’m usually with her, since it’s the polite thing to do.”

“Not all of us walk around with someone looking for the closest broom closet to make out in. Hate to break it to you Rose, but not all of your siblings are in the rainbow parade. You got Bro and Roxy, but I’m cool just watching from the sidelines offering my support like the awesome fucking brother I am.”

Dave only rambles that much when he’s nervous. You feel a sinking feeling somewhere deep in your gut. You’re not stupid; you know that this has to do with you.

Rose isn’t stupid either, which is why she raises an eyebrow at him. She looks a lot less pissed off than you thought she would be. “Dave, I’m not sure what triggered your rant, but it seems to me that there may be something you’d like to tell me.”

Dave shrugs. “Nah, nothing to say here. My sister’s gay as shit, that’s all. Just stating the facts.”

Rose stays silent, and for some reason, Dave takes that as a sign to dig himself further into a fucking trench. “Hey, no need to give me that look. I’m just not part of your gay agenda. Gagenda. Wait no, that sucked. Unlike you, since you don’t…” He trails off, finally realizing what he was about to say.

At this point, Rose’s expression conveys a proper level of pissed off. Her entire body is tense, and you can see her trying not to clench her teeth. “Dave,” she says, voice tight, “I’d recommend you stop talking now.”

“Shit, yeah. Sorry.”

Rose goes back to her room, and Dave just heads down the stairs. You wait a few moments before following him down, silently thankful that you’re going back home tonight. You don’t want to deal with their bullshit.

The rest of the day carries a palpable awkwardness and tension that just manages to piss you off. When you finally leave, you figure that the tension between Rose and Dave will clear up soon enough.

You realize that it hasn’t when, a few days later, Kanaya messages you, asking if you know why Rose is so upset.

.

Things clear up by the time John moves to Illinois. He, Dave, Rose, and Jade all have some huge, sappy meeting that none of them will shut up about for a week straight. They all insist that you have to meet John.

You’re with Jade when you first meet him. You two walk into his grandma’s bakery, and sure enough, there’s a kid with black hair, ugly glasses, and teeth the size of Oregon sitting at one of the tables eating a banana.

The first words that pop up in your head are, “cheerful, buck-toothed idiot.” The moment he opens his mouth, your description is proven correct.

“Oh man!” He says, swallowing his mouthful of banana, “hey, I’m John! Nice to meet you. And to see you again, Jade.”

You just scowl at him. Jade punches you in the arm and hisses in your ear, “don’t be rude! Introduce yourself!”

“Karkat,” you say gruffly.

John’s eyes go wide with recognition. “You’re Karkat?” He asks, as if he’s attempting his best impression of a parrot. He looks at Jade and points at you as if you couldn’t fucking see exactly what he was doing. “So this is the guy that Dave has a crush on, right?”

There’s nothing in your mouth, but you immediately start choking anyways. You feel like even the air itself is trying to kill you. After a few mortifying seconds of sputtering, you manage to get out, “wait, no! What the fuck!?”

“Dude, with how much he talks about you? It’s pretty obvious,” John says with a laugh. “But don’t tell him I said that! He’d just get all pissy and dumb if he knew.”

You decide that John Egbert is, without a doubt, the biggest fucking loser you have ever met and ever will meet on the face of the planet.

.

You and Dave spend most of your time together. If you’re not at his house, he’s at yours. Your dad still doesn’t feel comfortable having the two of you stay at home by yourselves, so most of the time Roxy and Dave come to your house together as a package deal. Sometimes the three of you hang out together, but Roxy is also perfectly content to sit in your living room and play some of the old video games you have laying around while you and Dave fuck off to your room.

“I get paid to play Goldeneye?” Roxy says one day, “and I get to see my favorite Karkatty pal? Talk about the sweetest gig ever!”

For the most part, it’s pretty great. But there are times when you think back to what John said, or to the defensiveness in Dave’s voice when Rose asked him where you were, and you can’t help but wonder a little.

What doesn’t help is that as you and Dave spend more time together, you grow even more comfortable with each other. You fall asleep on each other a couple times after watching a movie late at night. Dave claps your shoulder more often, grabs your arm to get your attention, jokingly steps on your toes just to get you to screech, and all sorts of other things. It’s like he’s just trying to find any excuse he can to touch you.

You develop this bad habit of running your hands through your hair whenever you get frustrated, and Dave always makes a joke about how you can’t go outside looking like that before finger-combing your hair back into place. His fingers are rough with callouses, but he’s so fucking warm that you can’t really complain.

When you’re alone you wade through these memories, finally allowing that weird, warm feeling to settle down within you. Most of the time thinking about him makes that feeling rise out of the depths like the fucking Loch Ness monster. There’s a part of you that knows what this means, knows what is starting to happen to you, but you generally try to squash it down and ignore it.

You tell yourself that all of Dave’s weird behaviors are just a side of him that you see now that you spend more time together. Terezi’s just as weird and touchy, and you know for a fact that her creepy flirting is just how she is with everyone. You used to read more into it, but you’re not a little kid anymore, and you know better than that.

So you tell yourself the same with Dave, and most of the time, you manage to convince yourself that it’s the truth.

.

TG: so uh dude dont think i ever told you this before  
TG: or anyone really but im pretty sure that rose figured it out at some point or another with her freaky mind reading bullshit  
TG: seriously she may actually be able to read minds too bad the jokes on her now she has to deal with seeing just how often everyone thinks about dicks  
TG: and food  
TG: man some doritos sound pretty good right now  
TG: and aj  
TG: did i ever tell you how much i love aj  
CG: OK, NOW I HAVE TO STEP IN. THIS TRAIN OF CONVERSATION JUST JUMPED WILDLY OFF THE RAILS AND CAREENED INTO AN ENTIRE TOWN FULL OF INNOCENT PEOPLE.  
CG: THOUSANDS JUST DIED AND IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT BECAUSE YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO FOLLOW A SINGLE LINE OF THOUGHT FOR MORE THAN A FEW SECONDS.  
CG: SO LET ME TRY TO SAVE THIS DISASTER BEFORE YOU MANAGE TO RUIN IT ANY FARTHER:  
CG: WHAT DID YOU WANT TO TELL ME?  
TG: oh yeah ok  
TG: well since you just spilled your entire tz dramedy  
TG: which was great btw  
TG: figure i should offer something to the table as well  
TG: i had a crush on jade for the longest time  
CG: WAIT, REALLY?  
CG: YOU HAVE GOT TO BE JOKING.  
TG: nope i am 100% serious i was convinced i was gonna marry that girl  
TG: i still love hanging out with her too shes genuinely a good person and shes smart as hell but way less creepy than rose about it  
TG: sure shes a furry but we all have our flaws  
CG: A FURRY?  
CG: ACTUALLY, YOU KNOW WHAT. DON’T TELL ME. I DON’T WANT TO KNOW.  
TG: suit yourself bro  
TG: but yeah i liked her p much since the moment i met her  
TG: but i dont think i do anymore? its not the same as it used to be when im around her now  
CG: WELL, WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN?  
CG: THAT YOU STOPPED LIKING HER, THAT IS.  
TG: dunno  
TG: a year ago maybe  
TG: but its chill i dont think id be able to keep up with her anyways  
TG: the girl is amazing she deserves someone better than me  
CG: BEFORE YOU SAY ANOTHER WORD I JUST WANT YOU TO SHUT UP  
CG: I *REFUSE* TO HEAR YOU SPOUT OUT ANY SELF-LOATHING BULLSHIT.   
CG: YOU’RE FINE JUST AS YOU ARE, OKAY? SO JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP RIGHT NOW.  
TG: oh shit  
TG: uh  
TG: ok cool here i am shutting the fuck up  
TG: zipping my lips and everything from here on out is only sugar no spice and everything nice

You wish you could lie and tell yourself that you don’t know why that conversation makes something light and airy swell up in your chest, but who are you kidding? You know exactly what it is.

.

Through the combined efforts of you, Kanaya, Rose, and Dave, your friend groups end up melding together into one giant clusterfuck of good feelings and palship or honchodom or whatever the fuck John wants to call it today. It helps that it’s still summer, which means that between the eight of you, someone has a parental figure or an older sibling willing to shuttle you all to the same general location.

Usually that person ends up being your dad, Roxy, or Terezi’s older sister (who still thinks it’s 1994, even though she wasn’t even born then!). Sometimes these result in massive sleepovers or pathetic excuses for movie marathons where everyone just talks over the movie at each other.

There are a few weird bumps, but everyone gets along well enough. Jade and Kanaya become instant friends, Sollux and Rose somehow mesh really well together, and John and Terezi…

Well, you’re not entirely sure what’s going on there. All you know is that John is trying _way_ too hard, the poor idiot.

Rose and Kanaya spend even more time together than you and Dave. You’re pretty sure Rose spends more time with Kanaya than she does with her own brother, especially if Dave’s not-so-subtle complaining tells you anything.

Rose and Kanaya aren’t not officially together, but they’re so into each other that you kind of want to throw up every time you see them with each other. Roxy loves teasing the two of them, and while Rose usually throws some passive aggressive shitfit whenever she brings it up, Kanaya blushes so hard she turns into a fucking tomato.

“I do admit that I’m very…fond of Rose,” she tells you one day when you’re over at her house, watching her sew up a hole in one of her dresses. “She’s sharp, witty, and she always keeps me on my feet. I like that.”

“Also you think she’s cute,” you point out.

She blushes. “Well….yes. She is.”

“So why are you two dancing around each other then? You like her, and I’m pretty sure she likes you as much as she can like anyone. Just ask her out already!”

She starts. “Well. I’m not certain about that. We do spend a lot of time together, but I know that she spends almost as much time with Jade as she does with me. She does seem a bit softer around me than she does someone like Dave or Sollux or even you, but I don’t know if that’s because of me in particular.”

“Kanaya, what the fuck are you going on about?”

Kanaya bites her lip. Clearly this is troubling her a lot. You feel a pang of sympathy for her. She doesn’t deserve to be sad at all. “Affection is…” she trails off, searching for the right wording, “ _different_ between girls than it is between boys. It’s more acceptable for girls to be physically affectionate without it meaning anything more. There are so many times I’ve mistaken flirting for friendliness from other girls,” she says with a grimace. “I’m not sure if Rose is simply comfortable with me, or if she’d actually be open to the idea of starting a relationship with another girl.”

“Huh. That wasn’t what I was expecting at all.” But the more you think about it, the more you see her point. You see girls practically hanging off of each other all the time, and no one even thinks twice about whether or not they’re into each other. If you were to do the same thing, everyone would instantly assume that you were gay.

For some reason, you remember the looks that some of the boys gave you and Dave last summer at camp, and it all falls into place.

You understand Kanaya’s worry, but you also know that, at least in her case, it’s a complete non-issue. “Don’t worry about that at all,” you tell her. “I’ve hung out with Rose a lot, and let me tell you, no amount of wizard fucking could turn her straight.”

“I’m not sure what Dave’s told you, but I’ve read her stories. They’re definitely strange, and while there’s a certain amount of romantic tension in them, they’re never explicit.”

“That wasn’t my point at all, but you know what? Okay. Whatever. The fact of the matter is that Rose likes girls, you like girls, and you like each other. Problem solved!” You throw your hands up in the air for emphasis. “Now just get on with it already and ask her out!”

Kanaya chews on her lip. She clearly has no fucking idea how to respond to your stunning display of logic. Her insecurities can bite you. It’s all going to work out fine for her. She just needs to get off her ass and do something about it.

As hard as you try to focus on Kanaya, your thoughts drift back to the boys’ looks at camp, to Dave pushing you away like you’re an infected corpse in the mornings, to the stupid as fuck way he got so defensive the moment he thought Rose called him gay….

You think of him petting your hair and resting his hand on your shoulder due to some stupid excuse that you never believed from the start, and you feel your heart sink. It isn’t fair.

.

GA: Karkat  
GA: I Have News For You And I Believe Youll Be Very Proud Of Me When You Hear It  
GA: Im Still Proud Of Myself For It  
CG: DID YOU ASK ROSE OUT?  
GA: Oh  
GA: There Goes The Surprise  
GA: But I Suppose It Was Obvious From The Start  
GA: Yes I Did And She Said Yes  
GA: Granted I Just Did It Over Pesterchum And She Had To Leave For Dinner Immediately Afterward But It Was The Only Way Id Be Able To Find The Courage To Ask  
CG: IT DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER IF YOU RAN OVER TO HER HOUSE, GOT DOWN ON ONE KNEE, AND PROPOSED TO HER WITH AN ENTIRE FLOWER SHOP AND A LIVE BAND PLAYING SHITTY SMOOTH JAZZ BEHIND YOU.  
CG: YOU STILL DID IT.   
CG: CONGRATULATIONS. :)  
GA: Thank You Karkat  
GA: Not Just For The Congratulations But For Pushing Me To Do It In The First Place  
GA: I Wouldnt Have If Not For You  
CG: YEAH, NO PROBLEM.  
GA: Now I Feel That I Should Try To Help You  
GA: Please Forgive Me If Im Being Too Forward But  
GA: I Think All Of Our Friends Have Noticed Whats Going On Between You And Dave  
GA: Please Dont Be Too Shocked But Its Incredibly Obvious  
CG: NO, I KNOW.  
CG: I’VE HAD A HUNCH FOR A WHILE. I’VE SEEN ENOUGH ROMCOMS TO PICK OUT THE SIGNS.  
CG: I’M A FUCKING MASTER OF ROMANCE, REMEMBER?  
CG: THE ONLY THING IS THAT IT WON’T BE AS EASY FOR ME AS IT WAS FOR YOU.  
GA: Why Not  
GA: You Seem To Be More Honest With Yourself Than I Was  
GA: And Hes Very Fond Of You  
CG: YOU KNOW THAT, AND I KNOW THAT  
CG: AND EVERY SINGLE POOR ASSHOLE THAT HAS SEEN US TOGETHER PROBABLY KNOWS THAT  
CG: I THINK MY DAD EVEN KNOWS THAT. UGH. HOW EMBARRASSING. I’LL NEVER BE ABLE TO LOOK MY DAD IN THE EYE WHEN DAVE’S OVER AGAIN.   
CG: BUT DAVE DOESN’T REALLY KNOW THAT.  
GA: Are You Certain  
CG: YEAH. OR AT LEAST, HE CAN’T ADMIT IT TO HIMSELF.  
CG: AND I DON’T THINK THERE’S ANYTHING I CAN DO BUT WAIT AND HOPE FOR HIM TO COME AROUND.

.

Dave refuses to share you on your 14th birthday.

At least, that’s how Sollux puts it when he whines to you about it. Something about how you two need two pull your head2 out of your a22holes and get a fuckiing room already. iit’2 gross. ii’m glad he want2 you all two him2elf tomorrow. have fun makiing out ii gue22.

But Sollux is a piece of shit, so what does he know.

Dave shows up on your doorstep at 2:00 sharp, covered in a thin layer of sweat and panting heavily. You spot a bicycle in your driveway, just the same shade of eye-searing red that Dave can’t get enough of.

You raise an eyebrow at him. “You know how to ride a bike? Since when?”

“A lot of shit happened when I was eight, bro. Had to outrun all these ladies and my legs just weren’t fast enough.”

You roll your eyes. What bullshit.

“Anyways, you ready to go?” He asks, looking over your shoulder for your dad. “Anything I need to say to Papa Vantas?”

“Wait a second,” you tell him before yelling over your shoulder that Dave’s here and you’re leaving now. Your dad shouts back that he’ll see you tonight, and to make sure to take the main roads when you go.

Wait, what?

It occurs to you that you have absolutely zero idea what Dave is planning to do.

“Where are we going?” You ask warily as you follow him back to his bike. It’s a one-seater, but there are small poles on the back wheels that you’ve seen people stand on in movies. You’re pretty sure it’s not going to be comfortable at all.

“What kind of friend would I be if I ruined the surprise? A shitty friend, that’s what. But trust me, you’re going to love it or your money back guaranteed.”

“I haven’t paid you shit.”

“That’s why it’s guaranteed.”

You both eventually get onto the bike, Dave leaning forward over the handlebars and you clamping your hands onto his shoulders for dear life. The ride actually isn’t that bad; he just ends up taking you to the metro station.

A few hours later, you end up in Chicago. You still have no idea what Dave has in mind, but every single time you try to ask, he just shuts you down. It pisses you off, but you trust him enough that you know this isn’t just some elaborate joke designed to piss you off.

He locks his bike up by the station and leads you through the city like he knows exactly where he’s going. You stop for an early dinner along the way (that Dave pays for, despite your insistence that you can pay for yourself), before Dave leads you right to the edge of the Great Lakes.

You stop in front of a planetarium; you recognize it instantly. You’ve mentioned this place to Dave a few times before in passing. Nothing special, just that you thought it’d be cool to go.

Dave fishes something out of his pocket and turns to you, grinning. In his hand are two tickets for the planetarium. “And the best part is that tonight the observatory is open for stargazing,” he adds. “Only happens once a month. Gotta jump on that shit while we can.”

You blink. There’s no way this can be real. It must be a particularly great dream or something – you’re going to wake up any second now, you just know it.

But Dave presses a ticket into your hand, and the paper feels so real in your hand and his skin feels so warm against yours that you know this can’t be fake. That warmth seeps into you, spreading deep into your bones and lighting you in a warm glow. It’s not unfamiliar, though – he’s made you feel like this before.

Something in his expression tells you that he must feel the same.

You’re acutely aware of the urge to grab his hand (which is still touching yours) and hold it as you drag him inside. It’s like a fucking tidal wave threatening to sweep you out to sea, and that sea is just an endless expanse of awkward mutterings and casual gay jokes that feel like poison.

But he’s right here, right in front of you.

And you know what? Fuck it, it’s your birthday. If you want to hold your best-friend-slash-crush’s hand then goddammit, you are going to hold his hand.

So you grip him tightly and ignore the idiotic, “wuh?” that stumbles out of his mouth like a drunk coming out of a bar on new year’s eve. 

“We’re going,” you tell him, and drag him inside. You let go only long enough to extract the ticket from between your hands, and to your surprise, he lets you take it again.

You hold his hand all the way into the building and until you both stop in front of the map just inside the entrance. You’re so giddy you think you might die. He looks at the map like it currently holds every secret to the universe, and he’s so distracted that you take it as an excuse to stare blatantly at him. His sunglasses cover most of his face, so you can’t see his expression.

But you don’t need to see his expression to see the nervous energy all around him. He’s scared and elated at the same time.

You don’t hold hands again, but you end up having one of the best days of your life regardless. Dave follows you to any and every exhibit you show the slightest bit of interest in, and for once, he even shuts up when you tell him to. An endless stream of stupid comments still runs out of his mouth, but many of them manage to make you laugh and reply with something that makes him laugh.

At night, after all of the exhibits close, you go up to the observatory. You look through the telescope and point out every planet you see to him, all large and hauntingly beautiful.

He’s the one who points out the cancer constellation to you. He calls it “the Karkat constellation,” which you kindly inform him is stupid and also wrong, but it makes your heart swell in a way that you wasn’t thought possible.

This must be what the protagonists of your romcoms and novels feel like; completely overwhelmed with _feelings_ for someone else. You feel like you’re floating everywhere you go. But the thing is, nothing those books say could come anywhere close to describing this.

It’s just. Amazing.

.

The next few days pass by in what feels like a daze. Your thoughts keep wondering back to your birthday, imagining what could happen soon if that whole debacle was any indication.

You run through countless scenarios of how it could go. Dave picking you up on his bicycle, taking you out to a 50’s style diner in a cheesy, throw-back style date. He’d make too many jokes about jukeboxes and wear one of Bro’s old leather jackets and make jokes about you being a pink lady. It’d be idiotic and you’d eat it up like the sap you are.

Or you could just…go for it, one day when you’re hanging out at your house with him. Fucking say it out loud, let the news sink in, and feel your chest explode with giddiness as he stammers out that he feels the same.

You daydream about the two of you basically re-enacting all of the best scenes from your favorite movies. You get so lost in them even when you’re with people sometimes – Terezi usually just laughs, and Kanaya has enough tact not to bring it up most of the time.

Jade keeps telling you to just ask him out already, jeeeez!! :p

Sollux calls you gross, but you know how he acts around the new girl who just moved in next door to him. He has no fucking right to tell you that at all.

.

When camp finally rolls around again, you and Dave go together. Roxy’s the one to drive you over, and the entire ride consists of her grilling you both about camp and ask why you keep going back every year.

“Dunno, Rox,” Dave replies coolly. “I think we’ve developed some kind of fucked up Stockholm Syndrome. You get bit by mosquitoes for so many nights and suddenly you find yourself missing being itchy all the time.”

“The threat of malaria keeps me alert,” you add.

Dave and Roxy both snort, but Dave just plays off of you. “Shit, yeah man. And poison ivy? It’s like a drug or something. Never thought I’d be able to identify with heroin addicts, but here I am wanting to rub myself all over any dangerous-looking plant I see. Gives me a rush.”

The one time Dave accidentally fell into a poison ivy bush last summer ended with you literally taping oven mitts to his hands so he wouldn’t scratch himself, but you decide not to mention that.

Roxy bursts out laughing. “You two are seriously the funniest,” she says. “Who am I to stop this forbidden romance?”

Dave stiffens next to you, and just the fact that you noticed that feels like someone just plunged a knife into your chest. Roxy’s actually a somewhat decent driver when she makes the effort, and since she’s able to keep her eyes on the road for once, she doesn’t notice. 

Roxy continues speaking, completely unaware of Dave’s Big Gay Breakdown in the backseat of her car. “A boy and his plant. Beautiful. Deserves every Oscar ever.”

Dave relaxes at that, breathing out a silent sigh of relief. “I’ll make sure to introduce Ivy to you, Rox.”

“Hell yeah!”

The atmosphere grows lighter by the time she drops you off. You go over to the check-in area together. The counselor working check in looks up from the other camper he’s helping and blinks at the two of you in recognition.

“Hey Dave. Hey Karkat,” he says. “Is this some kind of weird coincidence that you’re both here at the same time, or…?”

“We came together,” you answer flatly.

The counselor nods, but the camper in front of him asks him a question and draws his attention back to the fact that he has a job to fucking do. You bristle at the voice; you’d recognize that raspy, shit-filled bark anywhere.

You and Dave exchange a disgusted glance.

_Fucking Adam._

It takes ten minutes before you discover that the universe hates you so much that it decided to take a colossal shit all over your somewhat-good mood. Not only are you _not_ rooming with Dave, but out of every single stupid, hormonal asshole you could have been stuck living with here, you had to be paired up with Adam.

Right now the idea of rolling around in poison ivy seems pretty appealing. It’d suck less than your current situation does.

Thankfully, Adam is long gone by the time you go to your room to start unpacking, but the fact that you’re going to spend almost half your day, every single day, in the same vicinity as that flea-infested fuckbag fills you with a special type of rage. You’re so angry you could pass out.

Fuck, does your head hurt.

You don’t see Adam until after dinner. You spot him walking out of your cabin, carrying his duffel bag and his suitcase like he has somewhere to be where people actually want him. 

Yeah, you just keep deluding yourself, Adam! It’ll never happen.

He stops by you as you pass him. “Hey, Karkat.” He says.

“What the fuck do you want, you inconsiderate douchefuck?” You ask.

“Just remind Dave that he owes me big time.”

“Fuck off,” you reply, because you are eloquent and awesome.

Still, you can’t help but be a little confused. You enter your cabin, only to see Dave and his familiar pile of shit all over the bed that Adam’s hideous visage was about to occupy.

He nods at you. “Sup.”

“Wait, what?” You are seriously the most precise with your wording. No one is more articulate than you.

“Traded with Adam. Figured I needed to save you from his annoying ass,” he explains. “Besides, Jerry snores like a motherfucker and I don’t need a treebulation for throwing my shoe at him to get him to shut the fuck up.”

“Yeah, fuck them both,” you say, grinning so hard that your face hurts.

.

You wish that you just woke up from a nightmare. Not that you want to have a nightmare, but it’d be a good excuse.

The fact of the matter is that you can’t fucking sleep and for some reason your mind is stuck on the idea of crawling into Dave’s bed with him. At least if you had a nightmare, you could bullshit your way into convincing him to let you join him. He’d be too concerned with making you feel better to worry about how he actually fucking likes you and wants you there.

Just the thought makes you filled with a special kind of rage. Why did the world have to do this to him? To you? He likes you and you like him – what the fuck is so wrong about that? Why can’t you just deal with the regular pining bullshit that every straight teenager gets to go through? Worrying about whether or not your feelings are requited and trying way too hard to impress your crush?

Instead, you get this. He’s so close and yet so fucking far out of reach. You can’t do anything to bring him closer, either.

You imagine what would happen if Rose and Kanaya were in your situation, if Kanaya was in your position frowning and fretting like the nervous wreck she becomes whenever she tries to be affectionate towards Rose. She’d stand here with her firsts balled at her sides, biting her lip and waging an internal war with herself over what to do.

Eventually she’d ask, “Rose?” Just softly enough for Rose to stir and hum inquisitively.

And then Kanaya would start fucking blushing, because she’s generally inclined to morph into a cherry whenever she gets flustered. She’d start wringing her hands nervously and glance down at the floor as if it held every secret of the universe. “Um. Well,” she’d say with a cough, “I was wondering if maybe you would like some.” 

A pause.

“Company. Yes. Company. With you. Right now.”

Because Kanaya is nothing if not a master of romance (and yes, you mean that in the most sarcastic way possible).

But then Rose, being the smarmy asshat she is, would smirk and tease Kanaya about it because she loves getting under her skin. Some things never change, and their horseshit is simply a universal constant. “Oh, really? Do you mean _here_ here?”

“I certainly do not mean there here,” Kanaya would reply, because sometimes she’s awful at understanding jokes.

And even though Kanaya wouldn’t be able to see it, Rose would waggle her fucking eyebrows and giggle and tell Kanaya that of course she can join her. Kanaya would break out into one of her brilliant smiles, just so elated that Rose Lalonde likes her and wants her and is her girlfriend, and then she’d slip under the covers and they’d cuddle. They’d be so obnoxiously adorable that they’d put sleeping kittens to shame.

It isn’t fucking fair.

You think it must be some deep-seated rebellion that makes you get up and go over to Dave’s bed. You know that he isn’t asleep, even though his eyes are squeezed shut and he’s perfectly still. He’s too quiet to be asleep; at night there’s usually just a pointless stream of rambling coming out of his mouth.

“Dave.” You say, not even bothering to make it a question. You hate the world and you hate society and its bullshit standards and most of all you hate whatever hurt him this much to make him act like this.

“Dude, go to sleep,” Dave murmurs, voice muffled by his pillow.

You feel a wall of hesitation rise around you, but by some force of nature, you’re able to barrel through it. “Remember what we used to do when we were younger? The first time I came over to your place?” You ask, not knowing how else to bring up the topic without outright asking and scaring the shit out of him.

He yawns. “Shit, yeah, I guess. Why are you bringing this up?”

“I. Uh.”

Dave stays silent. Waiting.

“Fuck! I don’t know how to say this without sounding like a desperate tool, but. Ugh, what’s wrong with me?” You bury your face in your hands and groan.

“Still not sure what’s up, bro. You okay? Need something?”

You almost tell him YOU. I NEED YOU, YOU OBTUSE, BUMBLING DUNDERFUCK. But you don’t, because you’re not that massive of an idiot.

Instead, you say, “you should scoot over,” and only hate yourself a little bit for how small and pathetic your voice is. It doesn’t help that your voice is still muffled due to how you’re literally talking into the palm of your hands.

You expect Dave to flip the fuck out. Lie and say that he needs to take a piss and lock himself in the bathroom for an hour, or pretend to suddenly fall asleep until you give up and go back to your own bed. 

God, why are you such an idiot? Why did you even ask in the first place? What is wrong with you?

What you don’t expect is to hear the soft rustling of his sheets. When you finally find the courage to lift your head to look at him, you see that he’s scooted back and lifted up the blankets. It’s a clear invitation.

So you take it, gingerly laying down next to him. There’s still a solid six inches of space between you, and as giddy and as light-headed as you now are, it still feels like a wall that you wish you could break down with your bare hands.

You’re this far, though, and you suppose that’s what makes you essentially give a giant middle finger to society and its bullshit standards. You move closer to him and tuck your head under his chin. For a moment, it almost feels like you’re both twelve again, back when you were so fucking cold you couldn’t think straight and so fucking oblivious as to why it made you so happy to be so close to him.

But now it’s different. The contact is intentional, and the way Dave tenses up tells you that he knows, too. You fit yourself against him like it’s a challenge. Daring the world to tell you that you don’t belong here.

What shocks you the most is that Dave doesn’t protest. He doesn’t push you away, or mutter a homophobic joke, or anything awful at all. He doesn’t move, just murmurs, “night, dude,” to you.

You wake up with your nose buried in his shirt. He rolled over in his sleep, and you can hear random, unintelligible mumbles coming out of his mouth. The cabin is silent, and when you open your eyes, everything is still dark.

It’s not morning yet. You still have a few more hours where you can be like this. Together.

You worm your arm underneath his and wrap it around him. Your hand settles on his chest. He feels like an oven next to you, and you take every inch of contact you can get.

It feels like a victory.

.

Everything changes on a hot day, with the crows circling above your heads and the cicadas buzzing all around you.

The counselors must be sick of you all or something, because your entire afternoon is one long free-time session. You go outside, but the heat and humidity threatens to melt you down to the bone. Naturally, you and Dave do the most intelligent thing and race down to the river as fast as you can. He beats you by a couple of seconds, and refuses to let you forget that.

But fucking _Adam_ apparently has the same idea, as does half the fucking camp. Normally you’d just deal with it, but after Adam spat mashed potatoes all over your face last night (and why the fuck did you get a treebulation for your completely justified tirade you launched against his sorry ass while he didn’t get punished at all?), you don’t even want to see his ugly face if you don’t have to.

You and Dave silently agree to go to a different part of the river to swim in. You’re not supposed to go too far from the camp, but you’re also not supposed to sneak out of your cabin after curfew, and you’ve been doing that for years now. You don’t really give a shit about rules anymore. 

You walk along the river for what feels like forever. You both wade in the water, letting it rush along your calves. It helps cool you both down. You carry your shoes in your hands, and when you look back, you see Dave’s sunglasses hanging off the collar of his t-shirt.

He catches your eye, and smiles at you, so fucking open and unguarded that it makes your chest ache. You wish you could march over to him and kiss him right now.

But you’re not an idiot, and you’re already pushing the boundary just about as far as it can go.

Instead you just smile back, relishing and agonizing in the slightest bit of red that creeps over his cheeks.

You reach a large bend in the river where the water moves a little more lazily. You’re so far away from the others that you can’t even hear their voices over the roar of the water and the buzz of nature.

Dave brings an apple out of his backpack and bites into it. You spot a crow on a low branch staring at it hungrily. You both flip it off at the same time, and burst into laughter.

The apple is eaten, the crow is thoroughly insulted, and you’re both at a point where you’ll do anything to get a reprieve from the heat.

“All right Karkat, let’s do this shit,” Dave says, gingerly setting his sunglasses and backpack on a nearby rock before shrugging off his shirt. You’ve seen him shirtless before, but you’ve always been careful not to stare, no matter how much you wanted to.

You don’t make much of an effort to hide your staring this time. You’ve seen him discreetly glance at you whenever you go swimming though, so you don’t feel that bad. Besides, you’re still too angry at how unfair it is that you’re stuck at this standstill to care. 

Thankfully, Dave isn’t paying attention to you. He just walks over to the edge of river and looks down at it. You admire the smooth curve of his back, thin but not scrawny. You also try to keep your hormones in check, and basically fail horribly.

Dave looks over his shoulder at you, one eyebrow raised. “You just gonna keep standing there dude, or are we gonna swim? After all, you’re the one who wanted to go here.”

“Oh. Yeah,” you say, coughing awkwardly. You shrug your own shit off and walk over to him. He glances over to you with a smirk, but you don’t miss the way his eyes briefly dart over you.

The fucker is so conspicuous without his sunglasses. It only makes you ache more.

You wade all the way into the water. You both swim for a bit, and you manage to forget your frustrations as you laugh and splash each other. The water is cold, but you soon grow adjusted to it. It’s a relief from the hot, stale air all around you.

After a little while, Dave clambers back onto shore so he can eat his lunch. You both managed to convince the cooks (who now know you both by name, and have for years) to give you a few chicken sandwiches, and you watch as he tears into his.

One of the crows stops deciding to be a voyeuristic creep and flies over to him, cawing loudly. It swoops towards his sandwich, but Dave swears and manages to scare it off.

You laugh at him while he’s chewing, and he flips you off. You’re not offended by it at all. Not only do you flip him off almost every day, but you can see the fondness in his eyes. It’s written all over his face, really.

You feel your stomach twist pleasantly. God, you want him so badly. He focuses on eating his sandwich, and you take the opportunity to ogle him like the hormone-addled wreck you are. Why does your best friend have to be so hot?

You’re so busy staring that you don’t notice the rustling above your head. You only look up when you hear a crack, and all you see is the flash of a bushy tail before something very hard and very solid collides with the corner of your mouth.

“Fuck!” You say, one of your hands flying up to your face. You look around for the offending object, and see a particularly large seed get swept away by the river. It only takes you a moment to put the pieces together; some asshole squirrel must have knocked it loose and sent it flying right at your face.

Dave looks over. “You okay, bro?”

“Fuck, I,” you gingerly touch the corner of your mouth. There’s no blood on your fingers, but it still throbs painfully. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

“What happened?”

You briefly debate about telling him, but decide against it. He’ll never stop making jokes about getting a nut busted in your face for the rest of his sad, sad life.

“Something stupid,” you reply, “because of a squirrel.”

“Those pesky motherfuckers,” he says, still watching you oddly. He looks like he’s trying to figure out what to say. Eventually, his mouth opens and out comes a strangled, “you should come over here, man. Lemme see.”

“What, do you think you’re a doctor now?” You ask, but you oblige him anyways. You get out and walk closer to him, noting how his breath seems to stop in his chest. He’s staring you up and down. He’s not even trying to hide it.

There’s a part of you that’s embarrassed, and it screams at you to go grab your shirt, throw it on, and hide in a corner. That part can’t stand how much he’s just. _Staring._

But the louder part of you, the one that burns with rage at the fact that he’s right here and yet you can’t have him, is what makes you stand in front of him. You watch him defiantly, daring him to meet your gaze. He does, and goes red immediately.

He breaks eye contact after a few brief moments and coughs, the sound awkward and clearly forced. “So. Uh,” he begins, his voice sounding hoarse, “where does it hurt?”

“Here,” you say, pointing to the corner of your mouth with a frown.

He glances back at you, eyebrows lifting in confusion. “Dude, I don’t see anything there. You look fine.”

“Well, it’s not! It hurts like hell.”

Dave pauses. Thinking. You see fear briefly flash over his face, but his eyes just go down to your lips and he swallows. He smirks, but it wavers as he says, “what, want me to kiss it better?”

Hope sparks through you like electricity, but it quickly dies out. He must be joking, and this is without a doubt the shittiest joke in the history of shitty jokes. “What?”

“I may not be a doctor, but I know my medicine. Y’know how parents always kiss their kids scraped knees or whatever to make it better? It’s time tested.”

Is.

Is he flirting with you?

You can’t tell if this is just some particularly cruel joke or his attempt to justify finally acting on the trainwreck that has become your relationship. You want to say yes, but you’re terrified of what could happen.

For some reason, you hear Kanaya’s voice echo in your head, a remnant from a conversation you had a few weeks ago. 

Youve Waited For A Long Time Karkat And I Think Dave May Finally Come Around Soon. Rose And Jade Certainly Think So And Im Inclined To Trust Both Of Them 

KANAYA, I DON’T FUCKING KNOW. THOSE TWO ARE JUST DESPERATE TO FINALLY GET THE CHANCE TO MAKE FUN OF US WITHOUT DAVE EXPLODING. IT WON’T HAPPEN. HE’D NEVER MAKE ANYTHING MORE THAN A JOKE OUT OF IT.

I Do Not Know How You Can Be So Certain But I Do Not Agree. He Wouldnt Do That To You

And then:

Dont You Trust Dave?

You do. You’d trust him with your life.

You refuse to acknowledge the way your voice cracks when you say, “all right. Prove it.”

Dave blinks, like he’s surprised you actually agreed. He steps closer to you. “Gotta warn you first, bro. Side effects may include fainting, screaming, heart failure, and spontaneous combustion. Contact your physician immediately if any of these occur, even though what the fuck would they be able to do about spontaneous combustion? It’s called spontaneous for a reason.”

He’s nervous – probably more nervous than you’ve ever seen him. It hurts to see, but for once, it just feels like there’s not some societal wall of no homo looming over the two of you, just a normal case of teenage anxiety. He wouldn’t be this scared if he wasn’t serious, regardless of whatever dumb front he tries to hide behind. 

“Dave. You’re rambling.”

“Uh, shit. Sorry.” He’s in front of you now, so close that you can see the few freckles that start dotting across his nose every single summer. It only happens when he spends a lot of time outside. “So, it’s here?” He asks, lifting his hand up and gently brushing his fingertips against the corner of your mouth. He’s so careful not to hurt you, but with the sheer electricity racing through your nerves at his touch, you doubt you’d be able to feel the pain anyways.

You nod.

He lets his hand fall back to his side, and presses his other one against your back. You can feel it shake against you, but the warmth feels so good against your skin, still somewhat cold and damp from the river water. You wonder if it’s so he can keep you steady, but soon realize that it’s so he can keep himself steady.

He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. You quickly do the same. You don’t see him move closer, but you feel a soft exhale against your mouth.

And then he’s kissing you.

The guy didn’t even _try_ to aim for where you were hit. It really was just an excuse.

But wow, do you care at all? Of course not. You press into him, and it takes every ounce of your energy not to wrap your arms around him and never, ever fucking let go. You’ve wanted this for so long and you have it. You didn’t think you’d be able to get this.

It only lasts a few seconds before he pulls away, his face beet red. He’s blushing hard enough to rival Kanaya, and the thought brings a smile to your face.

Dave sees you, and smiles back. “Feel better?” He asks.

You bite your lip, trying your best to engrave what just happened into your memory. “I’m…not sure,” you try, hesitant, “maybe it didn’t work the first time.”

And to your surprise, he obliges, kissing you again.

Right as you close your eyes and tilt your head, trying to get that perfect angle you see in practically every vaguely romantic movie ever, you spot a crow on a branch behind him.


	3. Chapter 3

_I can’t explain the state that I’m in_  
_The state of my heart, he was my best friend_  
_Into the car, from the backseat_  
_Oh, admiration in falling asleep_

 

You both quickly agree to keep this… _whatever it is_ a secret from the other campers. They’re from just about every part of Illinois imaginable – the boys from Chicago and the suburbs probably wouldn’t give a shit, but you’ve heard what some of the others say. Neither of you need to get extra treebulations for fighting a homophobic shitbag.

Besides, you have a sinking feeling that their comments would get to Dave way more than he’d like to let on. 

He was the one to kiss you, but it’s painfully obvious how much he has to fight with himself just to do anything vaguely romantic with you. You haven’t kissed since then, but when you sneak out at night to go find constellations, Dave always hesitates before taking your hand. And you always wait for him to make the first move – you don’t want to push him too far. But when he finally works up the courage, you lace your fingers between his and squeeze his hand tightly.

It always brings a small, embarrassed smile to his face, which never fails to make your heart leap in your chest.

.

You haven’t talked about what you are yet. You know what title you desperately want; you want to carry the word _boyfriend_ with you like a medal that you fucking fought tooth and nail for.

But you don’t, because as much as it sucks, you know how delicate this balance is, and you don’t want to push it. You’ll do anything to keep him, even if it hurts.

.

There are more crows than usual around the camp, and they never seem to leave Dave alone. He fights them off constantly, and almost never gets away without receiving at least one angry, red mark on his skin. Adam seems to get a fucking kick out of that, so when the counselors aren’t looking, you make sure to get a good kick right in his shins.

His hiss of pain sounds like music to your ears.

“What the fuck!?” He whisper-shouts, glaring daggers at you. If looks could kill, you’d be six feet under by now. Good thing they can’t, so you can glare back at him with just as much venom.

“Did you see what happened to him yesterday, or are you too blinded by your desire to slobber over anything that vaguely reminds you of candy to have some basic fucking decency!? One pecked him so badly that he’s wearing gauze over the wound! Gauze!” You gesture towards Dave, and more specifically at the giant white patch wrapped around his forearm.

He rolls his eyes. “No, I didn’t. Then again, he’s not my boyfriend, so I guess I don’t pay as much attention to him as you do.”

It takes every ounce of willpower in your body not to freeze. You glance briefly over at Dave, but he’s too preoccupied trying to fight off another fucking crow to have heard Adam. If he did, you know that he would have flipped the fuck out. You breathe a mental sigh of relief, and turn all your hatred back onto the inconsiderate fuckface in front of you. “First off, I almost feel bad that your head is wedged so far up your ass that you can’t wrap your tiny, feeble mind around the concept that some people actually have the _basic fucking decency_ to care about another person’s well-being enough to form a friendship! But what would you know, considering that you’ve never had a vaguely positive interaction with someone who wasn’t obligated to like you by blood in your life!”

That fact that you essentially just went on a long, complicated rant that boils down to HE’S NOT MY BOYFRIEND, YOU DOLT feels like a knife plunging slowly and painfully into your chest. You’d do anything to brag to Adam about how great it is to have a relationship with someone who enjoys spending time with you, but the consequences are just too fucking dire for you to even try.

His words – and your response – haunt you throughout the rest of the day. Every inch of space between you and Dave, every carefully maintained interaction in order to not attract any more attention than necessary, feels like an insurmountable wall towering over the two of you. It feels like it could topple down on you at any second and crush you to pieces.

You aren’t able to let your guard down until that night, when it’s just you and Dave in your small cabin. You’re usually okay with sleeping in your own bed, but tonight, you crave his presence. At the very least, you can have this behind closed doors, right? No one is here to judge you.

When Dave finishes brushing his teeth, you’re already sitting on his bed, waiting for him. He shoots you an odd look that somehow you’re able to pick out just by the dim light of the single lamp in the cabin. “Need something, bro?” He asks.

You barely resist the urge to say something incredibly cheesy and embarrassing. Instead, you absolutely do not squeak out something only slightly less cheesy and embarrassing. “Can we, um, stay together tonight? _Together_ together?”

It takes him a few moments to process what you just said, but when he does, you see him go red. “Oh, shit, uh…” He pauses briefly, and each second drags out for an eternity. He swallows. “Yeah, man. Whatever you want. Let’s do our best impression of two peas in a pod.”

You end up sharing your bed that night. You climb in first, and he joins you a few seconds later. At first, he’s careful to maintain a few inches of distance between the two of you. It feels like a chasm that stretches out for forever.

“Come closer?” You ask, except you didn’t mean for it to come out as a question. It takes a moment before you can manage to tack a, “please?” onto the end, quiet and broken. You’re already preparing for your heart to be crushed to pieces.

You think back to how you felt just a few days ago, spurred on by an indignant rage against the world, and wonder where that fire went. You guess that behind all that bravado, you’re just…scared.

You’re both scared.

“Only.” You swallow. There’s a lump in your throat that wasn’t there just a few moments ago. “Only if you want to,” you add quickly.

Dave starts a little at that, and blinks a few times. “Wait, uh, yeah. Yeah, I want to,” he says, and you’re not sure if he’s saying that to reassure you or reassure himself. He moves close enough to you that you can feel his body heat, his body pressed against yours. “Are we supposed to do that pretzel shit or whatever?” He asks, eyes darting downwards. He worms a leg between yours, and before long, you’re basically clinging to each other. Your arm is wrapped tightly around him, pulling him as close to you as you can.

“Are you okay with this?” You ask him, failing to keep the fear out of your voice.

Again, he swallows, and you can feel it against you. “Yeah. This is. Nice.” He’s still nervous, but you can tell he’s genuine, and it makes a warmth spread throughout your body.

Right before you go to sleep, you feel lips press against your cheek, soft and chaste.

You wake up smiling.

.

It takes a week for you agree that, at the very least, you should tell your friends.

Well, Dave’s reasoning is more along the lines of im pretty sure everyone is in a bet with each other over when this thing was gonna become a THING thing so we might as well let someone collect their winnings. sure the girls and john will never let me hear the end of it but theyd never let me hear the end of it if i didnt tell them so whatever lets just do this shit. either way dave strider loses to a bunch of giggling teenagers.

You don’t tell them that you’re dating, because you’re not, not really. You just tell them that you kissed, and they all know the situation well enough to get the hint.

GA: You Did It Karkat Im So Happy For You  
GA: I Know The Two Of You Will Make Each Other Very Happy Im Certain Of It  
GA: You May Not Believe It But You Deserve To Be Happy  
GA: Also If You Would Ever Like To Go On A Double Date With Rose And I I Would Not Be Opposed  
GA: Though It May Take A Large Amount Of Convincing To Get Dave And Rose To Agree  
GA: Oh And One More Thing That I Should Warn You Of Now  
GA: When I Made The Announcement About Rose My Phone Did Not Stop Vibrating With New Messages For An Hour  
GA: I Expect Something Similar To Happen To You And Dave So I Hope You Have Your Chargers Nearby Youll Need Them

It takes ten minutes before the other messages come flooding in.

TT: Ah, yes. Dave tried to outrun the gay thoughts, but we all know that he couldn’t.  
TT: Though, I’d like to give you some advice. You probably already know this, but just to re-emphasize the point:  
TT: If he rebuffs your affections, don’t take it personally. There’s still a lot that he needs to work through regarding his newfound relationship with you, so be patient with him. Acceptance will come with time.

GG: you kisseeeeeeedddd!!!!  
GG: omg congrats karkat :D :D :D  
GG: i know youve really wanted this for a long time and im so happy for you! hehe  
GG: oh yeah brb need to congratulate dave too!

TG: omg karcutie  
TG: :’)  
TG: ur gonna make an honest man out of my fav lil bro  
TG: id say if u break his heart imma kick ur ass but tbh i gotta threaten dave w/ that too  
TG: if he breaks ur heart ill kick his ass no worries  
TG: rolals lookin out 4 u here

EB: heh.  
EB: so you guys are finally a thing now, right? about time!  
EB: sorry it took so long, man. dave is kind of an idiot when it comes to stuff like this!

GC: H3H3H3H3H3H3  
GC: K4RK4T 1LL H4V3 YOU KNOW TH4T D4V3S SMOOTH MOV3S H4V3 H3LP3D M3 W1N 4 LOT OF MON3Y  
GC: 1 W1LL TR34T YOU BOTH OUT TO 1C3 CR43M WH3N YOU COM3 B4CK  
GC: >:]

TA: goddamn iit, kk.  
TA: ii owe tz 50 buck2 and iit’2 all your fault.  
TA: why couldn’t you two have pulled your heads out of your a22e2 three day2 earliier?

You know that Dave gets the same barrage of messages.

He spends the rest of the day complaining about Rose, and as curious you are about their conversation, you decide it’s best not to ask.

.

You still sneak out at night to go to that small hill to stargaze. The only difference now is that rather than sitting next to each other, you lay down with Dave’s head resting on your chest. When you point out constellations, it’s always with the hand that’s holding his.

It’s different than before, but it feels so natural.

.

There are still afternoons where you spend your free time curled up in the library with a book in your lap. Dave sometimes joins you, but he doesn’t like reading even a quarter as much as you do. At first, he’d spend his time sitting at the (surprise, log-shaped!) coffee table in front of the couch you claimed as your own, drawing dumb, obscene comics that you never find half as funny as he does. But after a counselor saw just what he was drawing and he received three treebulations (at once!) for “inappropriate conduct,” he stopped hanging around there as much. 

So most of your time in the library is spent in the company of whatever book Rose or Kanaya recommended to you that the library actually had, and whatever poor counselor was stuck with summer school work he’d abandoned in favor of watching over your sorry asses.

Today, Dave spent all of breakfast trying to convince you to go swimming with him during free time. Your arm is still sore from the disaster of a kayaking trip the counselors somehow thought would be a good idea, so your natural response was to tell Dave FUCK NO, I’M NOT RISKING MY LIFE AGAIN.

Which is why you’re in the library with only a book Rose let you bring with you to camp and some poor counselor stuck doing summer school work to keep you company. You sprawl upside-down over the couch, your nose stuck in the novel as you tear through it ferociously.

You only set it down to pull out your phone and message Rose about it.

CG: SO I CAN’T HELP BUT WONDER WHY LOUISA’S FAMILY INSISTS ON BEING COMPLETE SHITWEASELS TO HER AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY.  
CG: AND WHY IS THIS TREATED AS SOMETHING FUNNY? HA HA, HER DAD JUST IMPLIED THAT SHE WAS AN IDIOT AGAIN! WHAT A RIOT!  
CG: THE ROMANCE IS GOOD, BUT I WISH I COULD CRAWL INTO THIS PLOT AND BLUDGEON HER SHITTY PARENTS WITH A BAT UNTIL THEY FINALLY SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LEAVE HER ALONE.  
TT: Oh, hello, Karkat.  
TT: I see you’re enjoying the novel I recommended.  
TT: You do have a point, though. That was something that bothered me while reading it as well. Her family certainly tries, but their treatment of her is a little lacking in the “familial affection” area.  
CG: WHICH IS TO SAY, FUCK THEM.  
TT: Pretty much.  
CG: DESPITE THAT AWFUL SNAG IN THE PLOT, I LIKE THE REST OF THE STORY. EVEN THOUGH I KNOW IT’S GOING TO END WITH A DEPRESSING BANG.  
TT: I’m not one to give out spoilers, so I’m not going to comment on that.  
CG: YOU KNOW IT’S TRUE.  
TT: Maybe I do.  
TT: Anyways, how is camp so far? I haven’t heard from you since The Announcement, as Jade and Terezi have decided to call it.  
CG: OH MY GOD, WHY ARE YOU ALL SO EMBARRASSING. THE ANNOUNCEMENT? REALLY?  
CG: NO ONE DID THAT WHEN YOU AND KANAYA GOT TOGETHER. YOU JUST GOT HARRASSED FOR A FEW HOURS. I NEVER HEARD OF ANY STUPID TITLES FOR YOUR RELATIONSHIP.  
TT: Yes. The Announcement.  
TT: If you want me to go even further, the appropriate title is The Announcement.  
TT: The underline is essential.  
CG: NO, IT’S FUCKING NOT. NONE OF THIS IS ESSENTIAL. IT’S JUST STUPID.  
CG: PLEASE TELL ME KANAYA DOESN’T GO ALONG WITH THIS SHIT. SHE’S MY LAST HOPE WHEN IT COMES TO BELIEVING THAT NOT ALL OF MY FRIENDS ARE INEPT MORONS INCAPABLE OF HOLDING A CIVIL CONVERSATION WITH ANOTHER HUMAN BEING.  
TT: It is absolutely essential. The most essential.  
CG: WAIT  
CG: ARE  
CG: ARE YOU AVOIDING MY QUESTION?  
TT: Avoiding what question?  
CG: DON’T PLAY DUMB, LALONDE.  
CG: I’M NOT EVEN GOING TO ASK IF SOMETHING HAPPENED, BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY SOMETHING DID. NORMALLY, YOU WOULD HAVE MENTIONED KANAYA AT LEAST THREE TIMES BY NOW.  
CG: SO WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN YOU AND KANAYA?  
TT: I regret to inform you this, but alas, my entire life does not revolve around another person.  
TT: Don’t believe everything media tells you about relationships, Karkat. You can still exist independently of others.  
CG: SERIOUSLY, WHAT CRAWLED UP YOUR ASS AND DIED?  
TT: I suppose the same thing that crawled up yours. Maybe they’re siblings.

You groan and throw your phone at the other side of the couch. You’re not in the mood for flighty broads and their insipid horseshit. If she doesn’t want to talk to you about it, then whatever.

.

You roll over to face Dave, his face lit up with the sterile white light coming from his phone screen. His shades are off, but his face is completely blank. He couldn’t give less of a shit about whatever he’s looking at.

So you don’t feel bad at all when you ask him a question that you know is going to take his full attention. The curiosity has been eating at you for a while anyways.

“Remember our first year of camp and how you followed me around everywhere?” You ask, noticing how Dave’s eyes widen a fraction of an inch. He looks at you, slightly embarrassed. “Why?”

“Oh shit,” he says, huffing out an awkward laugh, “I kind of did, didn’t I?”

“You wouldn’t leave me alone.”

He shuts his phone off, plunging you both in darkness. You can’t see his expression anymore. “Shit man, I thought you were hilarious. You were the only other one who had the guts to talk back to the counselors, and I liked that. And the way you said it?” You can hear the grin in his voice. “I wanted to cry. It was beautiful.”

“So you liked to harass me and shits and giggles.”

“Hey, hey. Whoa. More than shits and giggles. Well, mostly shits and giggles, but also because you weren’t half as stupid as the other campers. Having fans was cool, but they weren’t any fun as friends.”

You think back to the peanut gallery with disgust. A few of them are at camp with you this year, but they don’t talk to Dave at all anymore. You’re not entirely sure why, but it probably has something (or everything) to do with how he used to wink at them “ironically”, and only stopped after he showed up the next day with a black eye.

It makes your heart sink into your stomach, and you try to shake the memory away. You decide to replace it with something much more pleasant. “And what about that night you stargazed with me? I still hated you,” you say quietly.

Dave makes a confused sound. “I didn’t tell you? I couldn’t sleep, so I was going on a walk to tire myself out when I saw you.”

You raise an eyebrow, even though it’s a stupid gesture since he can’t actually see it. “And…?”

“And then I was like ‘shit yeah, there’s that hilarious kid. Better go see what’s up with him.’ I didn’t know you were actually stargazing, by the way. I just thought the whole stargazing thing was a good line.”

“So your stupid joke making sense was a complete coincidence?” You ask incredulously.

Your eyes have adjusted enough to see the flash of a grin on Dave’s face. “It was fucking fate.”

If you were any other couple, he would have kissed you then. But you’re not even really a couple, so he doesn’t.

.

Sometimes, when you know Dave is just waking up and still too groggy to process anything, you kiss him. Right on the lips, like you’re trying to announce to the world just how much you like him and how it can go fuck itself with a wooden spike if it has a problem with you two.

And on those mornings, Dave will actually kiss back, his movements sluggish but still enthusiastic. Butterflies spread through your body when you feel him smile against your mouth.

It’s the only time you can kiss and have it last longer than five seconds without Dave panicking, so you relish every moment you can get.

.

As is typical of your meddling, no-good, nosy-ass friend group, Jade is the one to tell you what the fuck is up between Rose and Kanaya. When you get the first text from her, you whisper to Dave that you have STUPID SHIT TO FINALLY SETTLE WITH YOUR PRETENTIOUS HALF-SIBLING AND HER TRAINWRECK OF A ROMANTIC LIFE and leave him to cover for your absence during a volleyball match.

GG: karkat help  
GG: i dont know what to do :(  
GG: i invited rose and kanaya over to my house for a sleepover but theyre not talking at all  
GG: rose is just sitting in the corner pretending kanaya doesnt exist and kanaya keeps glaring at her while also looking really sad   
GG: and they wont do anything fun with me they just want to sit there and be angry  
GG: youre good at getting people to cooperate!!! what do i do?? D:  
CG: OH FUCKING HELL, JADE.  
CG: I KNEW SOMETHING WAS UP BETWEEN THE TWO OF THEM. YOU JUST STUMBLED RIGHT INTO THE MIDDLE OF THEIR IDIOTIC FIGHT.  
CG: AND BEFORE YOU ASK, NO, I DON’T KNOW WHY THEY’RE FIGHTING. WHAT COULD THEY EVEN FIGHT ABOUT? WHO READS SHITTIER NOVELS? WHETHER SEWING OR KNITTING IS BETTER?  
GG: wait  
GG: really???  
GG: oh no…  
CG: YES, JADE.  
CG: YOU’RE THIRD WHEELING IN THE ABSOLUTE WORST WAY POSSIBLE.  
GG: oh FUCK  
GG: im gonna get to the bottom of this then!!!! brb

She messages you about an hour later.

GG: so um  
GG: theyre not fighting, not really…  
GG: they kind of  
GG: um  
GG: broke up  
GG: :(  
CG: WAIT  
CG: OH  
CG: OH SHIT JADE  
CG: YOU ARE COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY FUCKED.   
CG: SORRY.  
GG: T-T

.

Some days the heat is so intense that you start sweating the moment you step out of the shower. Those days usually lead into nights where you and Dave try to share a bed, only to end up kicking each other onto the ground in an attempt to cool off. 

Just like every summer, you spend a ridiculous amount of time out in the sun. Dave still gets sunburnt no matter how much sunscreen he applies, but he never actually tans. You’re already pretty dark, but you only get darker as time passes. 

You fight off wildlife and insult Adam and Gerald and tear through as many books in the library as you can and sometimes, you even get Dave to hold your hand when walking back to your cabin after being stuck in the cafeteria for an extra hour and a half due to whatever treebulation you have to face that day. He rambles about incoherent bullshit the entire walk back.

You don’t want this to end.

.

And also just like every other summer, you gather with the other campers and the counselors in a circle to share one thing you learned at camp. You all sit on the floor of the meeting room, and you have to wipe your hands on your shorts after touching the ground. It’s fucking filthy.

Who thought sitting on the ground was a good idea? Ugh.

One of the counselors fixes you with a sharp look. “Well I’m sorry that you don’t like my idea, Karkat,” he says, his voice unnaturally calm. You’ve pissed him off often enough to know that he’s trying his hardest not to snap at you. Heh. At least the asshole can’t give you any more treebulations.

You mumble out a quiet, insincere, “sorry,” as the counselors start sharing about what they’ve learned.

As the other campers begin to share, Dave sometimes leans over to you and whispers some snide quip in your ear. Every time he pulls away with a smug, shit-eating grin plastered on his face, and it takes all your self-control not to burst out laughing at whatever he told you.

When it’s Adam’s turn, he clears his throat. “Well, I learned how to tie three different types of knots this summer at camp. Which means that I’m only three badges away from becoming an Eagle Scout,” he announces, puffing his chest out. The counselors congratulate him and start clapping, forcing the rest of you to applaud out of obligation.

“Can’t wait to update his kiddie sash,” Dave mutters, and you have to fight down a snicker. Seriously, fuck that guy.

A few more campers go, but you don’t pay much attention to them. You only tune back in to the conversation when Dave clears his throat, ready to indulge in the counselor’s prompt.

“I learned what is probably the most important thing I’m gonna learn in my entire life,” Dave says, clearly relishing the curious, expectant looks he’s now receiving, “which is that it _hurts_ getting pecked by crows. Seriously, what’s their problem? Feathery assholes.”

The counselors, having finally given up on any attempts to keep you all from swearing, somehow spontaneously develop a sense of humor and chuckle at that. You’ve heard him call them that for the entire summer, but it still brings a small grin to your face.

You can see Dave glance over at you from behind his shades. He smirks, and you swear that you feel your heart skip a beat. You have to fight to keep your smile from getting completely dopey, just as you have to fight the urge to lean over and kiss him.

If you were alone, you definitely would. He’d be nervous just like he always fucking is, but you wouldn’t care. Not this time.

“Karkat?” One of the counselors asks, snapping you back into reality.

Oh, shit. You’re supposed to share.

There’s a thought bubbling on the edge of your mouth, but it’s only half-formed and you’re not sure if you entirely mean it. So you go with something that you know you mean.

You tell them, “I learned that I kind of like swimming.”

.

You and Dave clamber into the back of Bro’s piece of ironic shit soccer-mom van for the ride back. You live in slightly different directions, but for some reason, Bro insisted that it wasn’t a problem.

You have a feeling that Roxy may have something to do with this. You should probably thank her meddling ass.

Music blares out of the radio, if you can even call it that. All you hear is some female singer trying way too hard to pitch her voice higher, singing in a language you don’t understand. It’s weird, like most things about Bro.

Bro’s too pre-occupied with bobbing his head to the beat to pay attention to the two of you. His fingers drum against the steering wheel. Dave’s drifting off next to you, his head continuously lolling to one side. He jerks himself awake after a few seconds (and you’re close enough to hear the small gasp that escapes him every time he does), but it never lasts. You have no idea how he can sleep through the auditory equivalent of watching a cat throw up a hairball, but whatever.

All those thoughts are rapidly launched out of your brain when Dave rests his head on your shoulder. It’s a very conscious move, judging by how he never leaned half as far when nodding off. The fact that his breathing is slightly erratic – he’s nervous, you’re pretty sure – only adds to your hypothesis.

You freeze up initially, but after a few seconds you allow yourself to relax into your seat. You feel a small, dopey smile tugging at your lips. If it’s really as stupid-looking as you think it is, Bro is somehow astute enough not to comment.

Your eyes dart down to Dave, and you see him struggling to fight off the exact same smile.

Something in your chest twists pleasantly at the sight, as if you’re being pulled even closer to him. You feel a warmth spread throughout your body, slow and deliberate. If you were alone, you’d probably kiss the top of his head or something, provided you could twist your neck enough to do so.

But Bro would definitely comment on that, and also you don’t want to break your neck, so you don’t.

When you look down at Dave again, something occurs to you. That half-formed thought that had been stuck somewhere on your tongue finally becomes complete -- whole and real.

You think you're in love.

.

Roxy naturally finds out what the fuck happened between Rose and Kanaya long before you ever do. But for some reason, she enlists you for help in solving the problem.

She conveniently forgets the fact that _you don’t have a fucking clue as to why they broke up._

TG: so  
TG: we r gathered here 2day 2 reunite 1 of the greatest loves the word has ever known  
TG: *world  
TG: since rosies ass has been thoroughly kicked 4 being a dummie its time 2 make everything right  
CG: WAIT  
CG: WHAT?  
CG: WHAT IS GOING ON.  
TG: omg good to c u too karcutie  
TG: u n me r the certified LOVE GURUS  
TG: since we r the only ones in stable n loving n happy relationships outta rosies friends/relatives  
TG: u have dave n i have the wonderful n precious n cute as shit callie  
TG: so were here 2 help kanaya get back into the club  
GA: Yes  
GA: Or At Least I Think  
CG: WELL, YOU HAVE ONE THING RIGHT. I AM THE MASTER OF FUCKING LOVE GURUS.  
CG: I’M LIKE A MONK, TRAINING IN THE HIMALAYAS OF ROMANCE IN ORDER TO MASTER THE TRUE ART OF EMOTION.  
CG: AND NOW YOU ARE MY PUPILS. PREPARE TO BE FUCKING ENLIGHTENED.  
TG: lmao  
TG: this is y u needed to b here karcuts  
TG: u n dave rub off on each other SO MUCH i love it  
GA: This Is True I Have Also Seen It For Myself  
CG: OKAY, THAT’S GREAT AND ALL, BUT CAN YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT THAT FOR NOW?  
CG: 1. IT IS NOT YOUR BUSINESS. EITHER OF YOU.  
CG: AND 2. AREN’T WE HERE TO HELP KANAYA?  
GA: Yes I Believe That Is What Roxy Wanted  
GA: Though Im Not Sure What She Is Planning On Doing  
GA: Or If She Can Even Help Through This Conversation  
TG: wow ok rude  
TG: but ill let it slide bc ilu  
TG: NOW lets catch kk up on this hot goss  
TG: tldr rosie threw a shitfit for no reason and dear sweet kanaya tried to help her out but rose got pissed and broke up w her  
TG: so basically its a rly overblown fight  
GA: Well Um  
GA: Yes I Suppose That Is True  
GA: But Another Pressing Issue Is How Superficial Our Relationship Is  
GA: From My Point Of View At Least Though Rose May See It Differently  
GA: We Never Talk About Anything Serious That Also Happens To Be Somewhat Intimate Or Even Tangentially Related To Our Lives  
CG: SO BASICALLY SHE’S BEING A STANDOFF BITCH AND NOT LETTING YOU IN.  
CG: DESPITE THE FACT THAT, YOU KNOW, YOU’RE KIND OF HER FUCKING GIRLFRIEND.  
TG: as the resident adult I gotta veto that statement  
TG: lemme bring out my veto gavel  
TG: aw yeah banging that on my desk rn  
TG: boom boom boom  
TG: lets keep this pg13  
CG: WHAT, NO, I DIDN’T MEAN IT THAT WAY AT ALL  
GA: Um  
GA: How About We Just Ignore That And Move On  
CG: YES. THANK YOU, KANAYA, FOR HAVING SENSE.  
GA: So Yes That Is My Issue  
GA: She Is So Distant And It Is Frustrating  
GA: But I Miss Her And I Don’t Want This To End  
GA: Even Though It Has  
TG: nooooooo  
TG: thats not true  
TG: thats y were here to help u out n get ur girl back  
CG: WELL, WHAT DOES ROSE THINK? ROXY, DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING?  
TG: weeeeeeellllllll  
TG: she wont come outta her fuckin room  
TG: havent seen her in 3 days  
TG: speaking from exp i think she saw kan bein all helpful n a good gf n saw it as smth condescending?  
TG: shes hella stressed rn n when she gets that way she wants 2 do everything by herself  
GA: But Isnt That Part Of A Relationship  
GA: Providing Comfort And Support To Each Other When Things Become Difficult  
GA: Thats All I Tried To Do  
CG: YOU CAN SEE THAT, I CAN SEE THAT, ROXY CAN SEE THAT  
CG: HELL, EVEN TEREZI CAN SEE THAT  
CG: BUT ROSE’S HEAD IS TOO FAR UP HER ASS TO SEE THAT, OBVIOUSLY.  
TG: k so how do we solve this conundrum  
CG: I’LL TRY TALKING TO HER NEXT TIME I GO OVER TO YOUR HOUSE.  
CG: THERE ARE A FEW NOVELS I’VE FINISHED THAT SHE HAD RECOMMENDED TO ME, SO I CAN USE THAT AS AN EXCUSE TO TALK TO HER.  
CG: I MEAN, I STILL WANT TO TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH OF AN OBTUSE, SELFISH FUCKFACE WILL IS FOR DOING THAT TO LOUISA AT THE END.  
GA: Karkat I Need To Ask You To Stop  
GA: Im Only Four Chapters In And I Do Not Want Any Spoilers  
CG: OH. SORRY.  
TG: lmao ur both so cute

.

True to your word, the next time you visit the embarrassing clusterfuck that is the Strilonde house, you do so primarily to see Rose. Everyone, your dad included, automatically assumes that you’re going over there to hang out with Dave. It means that Rose won’t be suspicious at all when you storm into her house until you kick her door down and force her to talk to you, but it also means that you get shit for going over there.

Terezi accuses you of 4B4NDON1NG YOUR OLD3ST 4ND MOST 4M4Z1NG FR13ND SO YOU C4N M4K3 OUT W1TH YOUR BOYFR13ND, and you ignore the sting in your chest at her words when you tell her to fuck off and mind her own business. Besides, you are on a fucking mission, and you are going to succeed, immeasurable horseshit be damned.

Dave answers the door, and though you spend a few minutes talking about absolutely nothing intelligent or worthwhile at all, you still catch the flash of irritation on his face when you tell him that you’re going to talk to Rose.

He didn’t wear his shades when he answered the door; they were pushed to the top of his head, mussing up his hair slightly. You told him you liked seeing his eyes last week, and since then, he’s made an effort not to wear them around you. The thought makes something flip and flutter in your stomach.

The unfortunate realization that Dave Strider is _cute as fuck_ doesn’t stop you from looking at him like the idiot he is. “Are you _jealous_?” You ask, incredulous. You have to stifle your laughter.

“No,” he answers, keeping his expression as neutral as possible. Too bad he couldn’t control the red spreading across his cheeks; the sight breaks your resolve and you (rightfully) laugh at him. It only makes his face go even redder; even the tips of his ears go red.

It takes a few minutes for you to stop laughing. When you do, you shake your head. “Dave, you continue to amaze me with how incredibly stupid you can be. Every time I think you’ve reached rock bottom, you pull a shovel out of literally nowhere and dig yourself five feet deeper into the hole of idiocy. Do you realize that you’re jealous of the fact that I’m going to visit one of the most Sapphic lesbians that has ever stepped foot on this planet? So I can convince her to talk to her girlfriend again? You do, right?”

You glance around the living room. Once you’re convinced that none of his relatives are hanging around, you lean up and give him a short kiss, effectively ending your conversation before it took an even further nosedive into proving to you just how much time you’re capable of wasting when you’re with Dave. He nearly follows you when you pull away, but you’re not sure if he doesn’t because he knows that you actually have shit to do, or because of the flash of fear in his eyes when he looks at you.

You force yourself to believe the first. “I’ll talk to you later, okay? After your sister learns how to navigate basic social relationships again.”

He smirks at that. “Sorry bro, but it’s not gonna happen. Her gothy bullshit is too deeply ingrained. It’s like when her mom spills wine on the carpet. That shit’s never coming out.”

“Ok, after she learns how to navigate her relationship with the only person capable of putting up with her gothy bullshit.”

“Bingo.” He nods. “You got this.”

He doesn’t follow you up the stairs, but you’re almost certain you can feel his eyes on you as you go to Rose’s room. There’s so much that could cause you to rant and rage and get sick with how in love you are with him, but you have shit to do. You can kick your feet and complain after you patch up the trainwreck that two of your best friends have gotten themselves into.

Rose’s door is closed, which is exactly what you expected. You knock on the door and loudly announce, “Rose! I just finished the book you told me to read. And goddammit, everyone else either doesn’t give a shit or is so horrendously wrong about the overall message that I’m about ready to buy the hardcover copy just so I can beat my brains out with it.”

Well, at least it’s true. You shake Rose’s copy of the book – a dog-eared paperback with its spine broken in two different places – for emphasis, despite the fact that she can’t see the gesture.

A few seconds later, the door opens a crack. The room is dark, but you can still see Rose in the gap. She looks like complete shit. She isn’t wearing any makeup, save for some smeared eyeliner that hollows out her face and a messy patchwork of black lipstick on and around her lips. She looks even more pale and washed out than usual.

She raises an eyebrow at you. “Oh, really?” She says, her voice full of distrust. She doesn’t think you’re here just to talk about the novel – perceptive, but too bad you do actually have a mouth full of yelling that needs to be released about this fucking disaster. “What did you think about Will’s letter at the end?”

You launch into a perfectly justified rant about every shortcoming of the novel. After a few minutes, Rose believes you enough to finally let you into her room. The two of you sit on her bed as you continue to outline every single problem you found. You even show her specific lines for added proof; she nods and hums along as you speak.

Your conversation lasts a good fifteen minutes, and you’re thankful that Rose seems to perk up a little as you talk. Well, as much as a freaky goth like her can perk up. You also take note of the fact that her room isn’t necessarily any messier than usual, which gives you a small sense of hope that she isn’t in as deep of a shithole as you had originally thought.

When your conversation begins to die down and you’ve exposed every flaw and praised every brilliant line appropriately, you finally go into why you even came to visit in the first place.

“Alright Rose, you’re not nearly as fucked up as I originally thought you were –“

“—Thank you Karkat, for always believing in my ability to take care of myself—“

“—shut up, I’m not done yet. Anyways.” You sigh. “I’ll just get to the fucking point. Why did you break up with Kanaya? If you’re acting like a complete shut-in and spending all of your time knitting freaky tentacle monsters,” you point to the pile of yarn and what look like knitted tentacles in the corner, “then you’re clearly not taking this very well.”

Immediately Rose goes on the defensive, her entire body tensing up and her eyes narrowing. She gives you a haughty, cold look. “There are a lot of assumptions going on here, don’t you think? The first being that my current state is a negative one, which I assure you, it is not. I just had a perfectly rational conversation with you, didn’t I? The second being that my current actions have anything to do with Kanaya, which they don’t. Do I need to remind you of what I told you before?”

Her voice is brittle and sharp, like ice ready to shatter at any moment. It only convinces you more that she isn’t okay. You cross your arms over your chest and glare at her. “First off, that is grade A, all-natural bullshit and you know it! You’re not! Acting! Normal! You’re being a gigantic bitch!”

She bristles. “Karkat…” She says, voice low and dangerous. 

You’re not taking her bait. “Don’t give me that, Lalonde. I’m here to help, and I’m not going to fucking leave until you tell me what the matter is.” Your voice gets a little softer, and you drop your glare. “You can trust me. I’m your friend, too.”

Rose is silent for a long time. It probably only lasts five minute, but it feels as if it drags on for eons. Finally, she heaves out a heavy sigh. “Kanaya is wonderful, don’t get me wrong. I’ve never liked anyone as much as I like her. But she doesn’t think I’m capable of handling myself.  
She would needle me endlessly about anything I told her – and I already have enough stress on my plate, between Roxy leaving for college and my entering into one of the most prestigious and difficult high schools in the state. So I believe you can see why I wouldn’t want to have an additional source of stress from Kanaya constantly telling me what I need to do next. She obviously didn’t trust me to be able to handle myself, and I couldn’t take her condescension any longer.” As she talks, her expression gets more and more somber. By the end, she’s staring at her hands, looking completely and utterly heartbroken. For once, she doesn’t sound like some lofty, sophisticated wannabe-adult; she just sounds like a sad kid. “I can’t deal with all of that.”

God, she’s so fucking in love. She’s mad at Kanaya and still a complete sap about her. It only convinces you further that they need to make up as soon as possible. 

(Something about her reminds you of yourself, and it scares you a little. You squash the feeling down.)

“For as smart as you are, you can really be a fucking moron,” you tell her, but there’s no venom in your voice. “Kanaya trusts you – she thinks you’re one of the strongest people she’s ever met. But she’s your girlfriend, and you know what that means? She wants to help! Sure, she doesn’t know when to back off, but being able to help you in any way is essentially letting her wildest dreams come true. She could win the fucking lottery and the only thing that would matter to her is the fact that she’d be able to buy you mint chocolate-chip ice cream with that money. Fuck, she’s so crazy for you it’s kind of sickening. She wants to be part of every single facet of your life that she can worm her way into.”

Rose looks at you, blinking tears away furiously. For the sake of her pride, you don’t comment on it. “And also, if she goes too far, rather than flipping your shit ungracefully off the handle and adopting the life of a useless hermit, just tell her, okay? She’ll back off.”

Rose’s lip wavers. You’re amazed that her voice works enough for her to say quietly, “I miss her.”

You can’t help but smile fondly at that. You rest your hand on her shoulder. “I know.” You tell her.

.

TT: Karkat?  
TT: Are you online?  
TT: For the sake of my pride, I almost hope that you aren’t. This will be much less painful for me if I’m allowed to just ramble on uninterrupted.  
TT: Strider-style, if you will.  
TT: Anyways, about the other day: you were right. I was, in fact, being a gigantic bitch.  
TT: Kanaya and I have made up, and I’m ecstatic to say that I am back to being in a committed relationship. Not without its faults, but a happy one nonetheless.  
TT: I couldn’t have done it if not for you.  
TT: You’re a good friend.  
TT: Thank you.  
CG: YOU’RE WELCOME, ROSE.  
TT: :)  
CG: HEH.  
CG: :) TO YOU TOO.

.

Fall comes, the leaves change colors, and everyone’s favorite Sapphic duo only get more and more disgustingly sappy as you all enter high school. They’re not going to the same school, so that becomes their justification for spending every moment they possibly can together.

It helps that Rose’s school is in Chicago, and since you and Kanaya live closer to Chicago than she does, she uses it as an excuse to stay the night at Kanaya’s house at least two days out of the week.

You think it has something to do with the fact that Roxy just left for college, but you don’t say anything.

Dave mopes too, in his own way. You’re not able to see him as often, which means that he unleashes his insufferable clinginess on John and Jade. You don’t know how it happened, but they all attend the same high school, despite the fact that John doesn’t even live in their school district. You chalk it up to weird bullshit.

John and Jade complain about Dave often. John often tells you something along the lines of ugh, i wish you lived closer so dave can be all clingy to you instead of me. that’s kind of what you signed up for when you two started dating, right?

He then usually adds something like oh shit! but i also wish you lived closer so we can hang out more! i miss you, dude! But the damage is already done by then.

You’re not actually dating, and that fact slowly kills you. Everything is almost in place, but something is still off. He still panics every single time you try to kiss him. He always makes sure to stand three feet away from you in public, regardless of where you go. Anytime one of your friends makes a joke about the two of you, he completely shuts down. He’ll refuse to get anywhere near you for the rest of the day.

It doesn’t help when you’re at school and see Sollux with his new girlfriend. How he ever got anyone to agree to date him is a stupefying mystery to you, even if his girlfriend is kind of weird and cheerfully morbid. But Aradia isn’t that bad, so why she ever willingly puts up with him is something you’ll never understand.

They hold hands in the hallways and kiss between classes. It’s absolutely sickening and you burn with jealousy.

Terezi, who has recruited John and Jade and formed THE S1NGL3S CLUB (seriously, how stupid is that?) always reminds you to give him time. Let him come to you on his own; it’s obvious how much he likes you.

And it is, but it makes everything that much harder.

.

The leaves fall, winter comes, and nothing fucking changes between you and Dave. You buy him a new camera for his 15th birthday, and when he opens your gift, his smile is the biggest you’ve ever seen it. He won’t stop thanking you throughout the day, and when the two of you are finally alone, you throw your arms around him and kiss him just like you’ve wanted to for the entire day.

For once, he pulls you closer and kisses back with just as much intensity. He doesn’t stop grinning until he falls asleep, pressed up against your back.

Whenever you think of how happy he was, you feel like you’re floating on clouds. Everything else falls off to the wayside; you can’t even bring yourself to get mad when Sollux messages you so he can be a complete pain in your ass.

You’re not even mad the next day at Rose’s party, when Sollux insists on being a complete pain in your ass to you in person.

But your euphoria all comes crashing down when Rose opens Kanaya’s present and pulls out a purple and black dress. Kanaya’s worked on it for months, and it looks even better in person than it did in the photos she sent you throughout the process. You’re impressed.

Rose pulls it out, gaping at the dress like it just revealed every secret of the universe to her. She looks over to Kanaya in wonder before flinging herself at her. Kanaya catches her with a laugh that Rose stops with a dramatic kiss.

Terezi, Jade, and Roxy (who came back from college just to celebrate Rose and Dave’s birthdays) all catcall and cheer. John snickers and looks away. Bro flashes Rose a thumps-up that she quickly returns. Rose’s mom pulls out a camera and takes a picture, most likely so she can frame it and leave it on Rose’s nightstand tomorrow morning. Sollux and Dave both grimace and cover their faces in their hands; you can hear Dave muttering about how his relatives have no shame.

You just stare at the two girls, and feel your heart break inside your chest, angry and hurt at how unfair it all is.

.

You know exactly why you refuse all your friends’ offers to hang out with for New Years. You all could have gone to Chicago to watch the fireworks over the water, but at your insistence, your dad ends up taking only you and Dave.

You’ve never told him about the two of you, but he knows. He must have known for a long time. The sly smile he gives you when he drops you off tells you as much.

The streets are crowded with people, and Dave clamps onto your wrist so you don’t lose each other. You twist and pull until you’re holding hands.

There’s snow all around you. City or not, it’s still an urban winter wonderland. Everyone around you is bundled up in layers of clothing, including yourself. Your beanie is too tight on your head, your scarf keeps trying to choke you, and your nose and ears are numb from the cold, but Dave’s gloved hand is in yours. That’s all that matters.

You figure that the only reason why he doesn’t completely lose his shit is because there are so many people that no one is paying the two of you any mind. You’re just a couple of punkass teenagers, and most of these people are too drunk and freezing to pay attention to anything besides the shiny lights they’re expecting to see in the sky.

You push and shove your way into the middle of the crowd. The sheer amount of body heat all around you helps to warm you up. Even though you’ve finally stopped moving, you keep holding Dave’s hand. The combination of his shades (at night? Really?) and a thick scarf covers most of his face, so his expression is completely unreadable to you.

You squeeze his hand. “Ready?”

“To see some shit blow up?” His scarf shifts; you guess that he’s grinning. “Fuck yes.”

The people around you begin to count down. Neither you nor Dave join in, but their mood is infectious. The light pollution is too strong for you to be able to make out any stars when you look up. It’s sad, but in a way, it’ll make the fireworks that much more impressive.

Finally, they finish the countdown, and cheers erupt all around you as the first round of fireworks fly into the air. They explode into an array of colors, twinkling silver, red, and green across the sky. The booms echo in your ears, louder than the roar of the crowd.

You look over to Dave. Fuck, you’re so happy you could faint. The only thought in your mind is how ridiculously in love with him you are. You’re young, and you’re still incredibly stupid, but you’ve never loved anyone nearly as much as you love Dave.

You think briefly of Rose and Kanaya, probably stealing from the Lalonde family’s stash of wine and watching the ball drop on one of their computers. You think of Sollux and Aradia, out doing who the fuck knows what, together and happy and free to be themselves.

That must be what drives you closer to him. You tug on his scarf and pull it down. From this close, you can see the confused look he’s giving you, but you ignore it in favor of kissing him. 

Kissing underneath the fireworks on New Year’s? Talk about romantic. It’s everything you’ve ever dreamed of. Your romcoms and novels have nothing on this.

And for a few sweet seconds, it really is everything you’ve ever dreamed of. Dave kisses back, thank whatever the fuck is looking out for you above, and you take that as a sign to wrap your arms around his shoulders and lean into him. He leans back slightly, trying to hold you up without breaking the kiss.

You know you shouldn’t put it into words, not yet, so you try to communicate just how much you love him through the kiss. He’s been your best friend for years. He means so fucking much to you. 

But then it all comes crashing down. You feel a jolt as Dave bumps into something, and voice from behind him says, “what the fuck!?” and it’s so full of venom that the two of you instantly break apart. Dave whips around to face the sound of the voice.

A large guy (who must be a solid six inches taller than either of you) who is thoroughly pissed the fuck off towers over both of you. He glares down at Dave. “Watch where you’re going, kid.” He spits out. “Why don’t you and your little boyfriend try that again behind closed doors next time.”

Several pairs of eyes land on you and Dave, watching intently.

Dave starts shaking, his fists balled at his sides. He looks ready to attack the guy. You sure as fuck aren’t going to apologize to the asshole, but considering he’s probably three times your weight, you decide against trying to fight him. You grab Dave’s arm and drag him out of the crowd, shoving your way past people in order to get out as fast as humanly possible. It only attracts more attention, but that just makes you move faster.

You reach the edge of the crowd before long, but you don’t stop walking until you’re a solid three blocks away. You let go of Dave and stand directly in front of him.

“Dave.”

“That fucker…” He mutters.

“Don’t think about it. Let’s,” you sigh, “let’s just go back to my house, okay? We can take the train. Everyone’s still being drunken idiots, so it shouldn’t be too crowded.”

He agrees.

You ride back in silence.

.

Dave just isn’t the same after that.

Not around you, at least.

.

It happens on a Saturday afternoon.

For once, it isn’t fucking snowing, leaving just a nice, fluffy layer of white all across the ground. It still feels like Hell itself froze over outside, so you and Dave sit in his bedroom with a blanket shawl wrapped around the two of you. Two mugs of hot chocolate sit on his nightstand.

You’re in the middle of Hitch, which you must have seen together at least five separate times. It never gets old for you, and it’s one of the few romcoms you can watch with Dave without him rambling out some idiotic commentary throughout the entire thing. And the best part? He’s actually quiet during the emotional scenes!

Miracles really do exist.

About two-thirds into the movie, you shuffle a little closer to Dave. He doesn’t react, which also happens to be a miracle in itself. It’s the first time you’ve gotten anywhere near him without him acting like you’re a landmine waiting for some unsuspecting foot to land on you and set you off.

So you take a chance, and you lean your head on his shoulder. You’ve done it before; he’s never minded if the two of you were alone.

But this time, he immediately rolls his shoulder, clearly shrugging you off. Frustrated, you pause the movie and turn to face him. “Okay, what the fuck is your problem?”

“What problem?” Dave asks, deliberately nonchalant. “I don’t see any problem here.”

“Stop talking out of your ass. You’ve been acting weird since New Year’s. What’s wrong?”

You have an idea of what the matter is, but you cling to the hope that you could be wrong. You hope you are.

“Dude, still don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re just chilling. No weirdness here.”

You groan. So much for tact; you already know that you’re not going to get anywhere unless you just say it. “We haven’t kissed since New Year’s. No hand-holding, no physical affection at all. You’ve acted like you’re going to die if I stand too close to you. Hell, you’re even trying to do that stupid coolkid, don’t-care-about-anything shit you pulled when we were twelve!”

Dave just looks at you like you’re an idiot.

“Dave. What happened?” You sigh. “Can you not do this anymore?”

“This?”

“Us. Whatever romantic clusterfuck we’ve been trying to play at since camp ended!”

Dave tilts his head down, unable to look at you. It just makes you hurt. “Karkat…” He sighs, clenching and unclenching his fists in his lap. As if that’ll help anything. “I’m…I’m not gay.”

You knew this would happen. Rose has warned you about this from the start. You’ve been expecting it since the day at the river when he first kissed you, but that doesn’t make the knowledge sting any less.

If he isn’t gay, then none of that shit you did together was romantic. What the fuck was it, then? _Platonic_ kissing? _Platonic_ cuddling on the couch when watching a movie? Being _platonically_ wrapped up in each other at night?

“I don’t know!” Dave responds. Your eyes widen. Shit. You didn’t mean to say that out loud. “But I can’t date you, Karkat.”

You try to keep your voice at a reasonable level. You fail miserably. “You can’t? Then what were we before, Dave!? Tell me!” You don't understand what's so hard about this. You like him. He likes you. Can't he just admit that?

He groans and runs his hands through his hair. “I told you! I don’t know. But we weren’t dating. We’re not.” He grits his teeth. “Dating. I don’t do that kind of shit.”

“You don’t do that kind of shit,” you repeat in disbelief. “Then what the fuck do you want from me, huh!? Do you want me to _platonically_ make out with you? As _bros_?” You snarl the words out, heavy with disgust.

“Don’t pull this shit with me, Karkat,” he says, his voice low and warning. Too bad you couldn’t give less of a shit about how mad he is if you tried.

“No, I will keep pulling this shit with you until you stop being a complete and total douchefuck!” You’re overcome with rage. You don’t even really register what you’re doing until your hands are on Dave and you shove him off the bed as hard as you can. He falls to the ground in a tangle of blankets and limbs, grunting when his back hits the floor.

He untangles himself out of the blankets and stands up. His shades are askew, allowing you to see one red iris narrowed viciously at you. His fists are clenched at his sides; his body vibrates with barely-restrained anger.

You’re not much better off.

“It was a mistake, okay!?” He shouts. “A fucking mistake! That’s all!” His eyes widen the moment he says it, but the damage is done. All of your anger freezes in your blood; you feel as if you’ve been encased in ice. You could shatter at any moment.

For once, you don’t have words. You tear your gaze away from him, grab your laptop, and walk over to Roxy’s room. Your legs shake. Your breath keeps catching in your throat.

You enter her room without even bothering to knock. She sits at her desk, a pile of homework sticking out from underneath her laptop as she browses Reddit.

She swivels her chair around to face you, a large grin on her face. “Ooooh man, my fave Kitkat is here—“ She registers your expression and goes silent, giving you a sympathetic look.

“Will you take me home?” You ask. Your voice shakes, but you manage to get the whole sentence out. It’s a small victory, but a victory.

She does.

You feel tears, angry and betrayed and hot, stream down your face. Roxy is enough of a saint not to mention it.

.

You go to camp that summer, though you don’t know why. Dave doesn’t. There are crows everywhere.

The other campers ask you what happened to him, but learn to drop the subject after you repeatedly scream at them to stop. Only Adam is enough of a braindead piece of rotted vegetation to continue bringing it up.

Within a week you can’t take his horrendous comments and that ugly sneer he always watches you with any longer. The final straw is when he asks you if you’re in such a bad mood because you don’t get to suck Dave’s dick whenever you want anymore.

The two of you get into a fight so severe that you’re both sent home. The bruises don’t fade for weeks.

You didn’t once go stargazing.

.

You sigh, still in the darkness of your room and finally tearing free of your memories. 

The fucking crow left, but so did Rose. You only have your thoughts to keep you company now.

You haven’t talked to Dave since then. He moved back to Texas sometime around Spring Break, and hasn’t been back since.

It’s been nearly a year since then. He would have just turned sixteen. You’re still just as much of an idiot as you were back then, if not an even bigger idiot now. 

You know that the others feel bad for you; they all do. No one talks about Dave anymore, save for the rare moments when you bring him up first. You know they still talk to him, but around you, they act like he doesn’t exist.

Jade is the only one who doesn’t try to keep up the façade. She’s usually the one to tell you how he is. As much as you hate it, you hang onto every single word she tells you like a desperate fool.

And the worst part?

Even after all this time, there’s still a huge part of you that is still in love with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It ends happily, promise.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writes a novel in a month. Well.
> 
> My biggest regret is that I actually stayed at a boy scout camp for a retreat last week, and I didn't know how grody boy scout camps are until then. They escaped all of the dead moths I found in my own cabin, because I totally would have included that detail in if I had known earlier.
> 
> Thanks for reading.

_We were in love! We were in love!_  
_Palisades, Palisades,_  
_I can wait. I can wait._

 

Your life has settled into a typical routine. Your dad finally agreed to let you find a job after your relentless badgering. The best Christmas gift he gives you is his permission to work at the Dunkin’ Donuts across the street from your school. You spend your Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoons taking advantage of the unlimited free coffee you have access to and serving disgruntled customers who can’t understand the difference between a latte and a cappuccino. You love the atmosphere and the wonderful smell of freshly-brewed coffee just as much as you hate the fuckfaces that inevitably show up and make your shifts a living hell.

For most of your shifts, at least one of your friends sits around working on homework until you get off work. Kanaya is more likely to come on days when Rose isn’t staying at her house, but sometimes she and Rose will buy tea and sit in the corner of the shop, giggling and snickering about topics you don’t care enough to find out about. Other times Sollux and Aradia will stop by; Sollux always orders an espresso that he takes like a shot of vodka, and Aradia (who continues to be not nearly as much of a freak as her boyfriend) orders an Americano like a sane person.

Terezi’s childhood friend, Vriska, has somehow shoved her hideous visage back into her life, much to your annoyance. She’d stop by more often if you hadn’t explicitly banned her from bringing Vriska anywhere within twenty feet of you. And since the two of them are practically glued together now, her visits are rare.

On the weekends you’ll usually find John or Jade (or both) asking you to hang out. You take turns going over to each other’s houses. You still see Rose as well, but she doesn’t invite you over to her house anymore. Instead, she always comes to your’s or Kanaya’s.

Roxy messages you from time to time to check up on you, but you never get the chance to actually see her.

You spend the rest of the time doing what you’ve always done: watch romcoms, read novels, and get extremely angry over bullshit that you know is completely inconsequential.

.

Terezi finds you in the cafeteria at lunch, and for once, she’s free of the tacky blue monstrosity that follows her around everywhere. You raise an eyebrow at her as she throws her backpack on the table and digs out her lunch. 

“What, no spider-obsessed lunatic today? Did she skip school or something?” You ask, fully aware of the fact that Terezi would most likely not be here otherwise.

Terezi frowns. “First of all – rude! My life still exists separately of Vriska, regardless of the fact that your guess is true. Secondly, I would have come to see you even if she was here today!”

“Why?”

“I can’t see one of my best friends?”

“Obviously you can’t,” you point out.

Terezi pauses briefly before launching into one of her full-blown cackles. “That’s true! Though I do have business with you,” she says, folding her hands on the table in front of her and fixing you with a dangerous-looking grin. You imagine this must be what she looks like during mock trial practice; ready to tear her opponent apart the moment she can.

You shoot her a wary look. “What, do you want me to act out your next Judge Judy roleplay so you can cavort around laughing as I sit on the witness stand, becoming more and more uncomfortable as all of your stuffed dragons watch me?”

“Nope! But thank you for the excellent idea,” she says. “I’m here to extend a formal invitation for you to join the singles club!”

Immediately, your face falls. Terezi, naturally, doesn’t notice. “John, Jade, Vriska, and I would love the extra member! There is a seat on John’s couch during movie night that is screaming your name, Karkat. Screaming just like you do!” She giggles, pleased with her own awful joke.

“Oh.” You say flatly. “Yeah, sure, whatever. Thanks.”

There’s a note of resignation in your voice that Terezi picks up on immediately. Her expression grows soft, and she reaches forward and waves her hand around until she manages to rest it on your shoulder. “Hey, we can include an exclusive screening of Stupid Crazy Love as part of your welcome party. I’ll even get my mom to make homemade pizza.”

Fuck. Her mom makes amazing pizza.

“Yeah…” You trail off, before adding quietly, “thanks, Terezi.”

She offers you another sharp grin. It’s as if she’s made of knives, the freak. You love her so much. “Of course!”

.

The months crawl by.

But you’ve never been able to settle into anything, apparently. This theory is confirmed on a March afternoon, right as you change out of your work uniform and text your dad to come pick you up. Once you send the message, you receive one in return.

It’s from Rose. Strange; you know for a fact that she isn’t in town today, considering the fact that Kanaya is currently waiting outside for you to finish changing.

You throw on your regular clothes and open the message as you go outside.

TT: I have news for you. Whether said news is good or bad is up to your interpretation, but I presume you’ll be interested nonetheless.  
TT: I’d also like to preface this by saying that I would have preferred to call you to tell you this, but I’m actually supposed to be paying attention to this SAT preparation class my mother enrolled me in.  
TT: Anyways.  
TT: My mother just texted me to tell me that Dave is coming to stay with us over his Spring Break, which happens to coincide with both yours and mine.  
TT: That’s in two weeks.  
TT: And you’re coming over to visit during that time. I won’t take no for an answer.

When you finish reading her messages, you’re so shocked that your phone slips out of your grasp. It lands on the concrete below with a sickening crunch.

Alarmed, Kanaya reaches down to give you your phone. One of the bottom corners is basically shattered, and you see hair-thin cracks running all throughout your phone’s screen.

You don’t take it back from her; she watches you, completely baffled.

You can’t believe this is actually happening. 

You’re going to see Dave again.

.

You spend the next fourteen days in a state of constant anxiety. Everyone who so much as makes eye contact with you notices. Keeping in tradition with just how fucking nosy all of your friends are, they all find out what’s tearing you apart by ten a.m. the day after Rose broke the news to you. They all respond in their own spectacularly shitty ways.

Sollux is convinced you’re going to have a heart attack and die on the way over to Rose’s house. The moment Aradia hears that, her barely-constrained inner mortician quickly takes over, and she starts suggesting themes for your funeral. When you tell her that you’re probably going to die of frustration from how fucking annoying she and her dumbass lisping boyfriend are, she only grins wider.

Terezi gives you encouragement in her own confusing, roundabout way; all she really does is insist that Dave’s coolkid façade is no better than it was the last time you saw him. Even Vriska, who doesn’t even fucking know who Dave is or why any of this matters, tells you that you’re so loud and obnoxious normally that being nervous around him will probably just do you a favor.

As usual, Kanaya is the only one of your friends with any sense of tact; her only words to you about Dave are gentle but firm encouragement. She remains your favorite friend.

Kanaya goes over to your house to wait with you the day of. You’re convinced that she’s mainly there to forcibly drag you into the car in case you faint when it’s time to leave, but you’re grateful for her presence anyways. 

You sit on your couch together as either of you barely pay attention to the movie playing on your TV. You lean against her as she combs her fingers through your thick, shaggy hair. You try to focus on her steady breathing, following its rhythm so you can try to calm your own. For a few sweet moments, you’re able to tune out the fears racing through your head.

That all goes to shit the moment you hear the doorbell ring. Kanaya tenses up, shocked, and you practically leap off the couch. Your heart races and anxiety races through your veins. What will happen? What is he going to say? Will it devolve into a screaming match, or will you and Dave just completely ignore each other’s existence? The possibilities are both daunting and terrifying.

“Karkat!” Jade’s voice yells from just outside your house. “Let’s go!”

Kanaya looks down at you with a small smile, nothing more than just a quirk of her lips upward. She squeezes your shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she tells you softly, “it’ll be okay.”

You don’t believe her for a single second, but you nod anyways. You take a deep breath and finally head outside to Jade’s ridiculously tiny car. You wrench the door open and slide into the front seat, blatantly ignoring her bright, cheerful smile. It only makes you feel more like shit.

Her grin disappears after a second. Out of the corner of your eye, you see her frown. “Karkat, come on!” She says. “Aren’t you happy?”

“If you really want to know, I feel ready for the earth to open up and swallow my miserable, pathetic existence. Hell, I’d rather be thrown into a bottomless pit than do this!”

She rolls her eyes and huffs. “You’re so dramatic! Dave isn’t gonna attack you or anything. He actually asked Rose and I about you a little earlier.”

Your mind fills with static. You turn to her, for once at a loss for words. Your confusion must be a fucking one-man comedy routine, because she bursts into giggles. “You’re kinda cute sometimes!”

That evokes a response from you. You fold your arms and scowl at her. “Don’t call me cute.”

“Too late!”

“Fuck you!”

“Fuck you too, buddy!”

.

Dave Strider sprawls out across the couch in Rose’s (his old) living room, his attention glued to the laptop carefully balanced on his stomach. He bobs his head to whatever beat is blasting through his headphones. You wonder if it’s one of his own mixes. He hasn’t noticed you and Jade come in yet, nor does he notice the thumbs-up Jade flashes you as she disappears up the stairs to Rose’s room. 

You feel frozen in place. Wait, fuck that – you feel like you’re in a dream, one that you’ve had many times before. This can’t be real. He can’t be here.

But then he looks over at you. You can’t see his eyes, covered behind the same pair of shades he’s had for years. They have more scratches than you remember, which only further convinces you that they’re the same pair.

All you do is stare at each other. Your heart hammers in your chest; blood rushes in your ears. A swirl of emotions – betrayal, anger, sadness – courses through you. You have no idea how to process this.

So you don’t.

You run up the stairs and lock yourself in Rose’s room, slamming the door behind you as you lean against it.

Jade and Rose look at you, wearing matching baffled expressions. After a few moments, Jade offers you a small, sympathetic smile.

“Too much?” Rose asks.

You nod, unable to form any words.

.

You don’t see Dave again after that. He manages to leave your mind as you have dinner with your dad, who is gracious enough not to ask you about Dave. Instead, he focuses on how Rose and Jade are doing, and drops anvil-sized hints that you should invite them over more often.

You don’t think of him until that night, when red text begins to fill your screen. It feels so familiar, and yet, so alien.

TG: so uh  
TG: hey man  
TG: sorry about starting the worlds most awkward staring contest earlier and looking at you like you were the newest three-armed baby at the circus  
TG: i didnt expect to see you  
TG: i would have been less surprised to see obama walk through that door  
TG: sup mr president glad to see youre fucking around the suburbs of illinois  
TG: its a dream vacation spot right especially in the ass crack of winter where you can literally die if you stay outside for too long  
TG: anyways i know its been a longass time and the last time i talked to you before now sucked major dick  
TG: but i wanted to ask how are things

You stare at the screen in disbelief. You pinch yourself just to make sure that you aren’t dreaming – because you’ve definitely dreamt of this before.

You debate about replying. On one hand, fuck him with a rusty shovel for not talking to you for over a year. He didn’t even have the courtesy to tell you that he was moving back to Texas; you only found out a week afterwards when Kanaya mentioned it in passing. 

On the other hand, you saw how much he wrestled with himself every time he tried to touch you. He constantly fought against the idea that he wasn’t supposed to like you. You’ve never cared too much about the implications of your own sexuality, but he was always haunted by it.

But even if he struggled to like you back, that didn’t fucking justify throwing years of friendship into the garbage. That didn’t justify dropping off the face of the earth for so long.

You know that you still care about him, and a part of you is overjoyed that he’s talking to you, but it’s not enough to overpower your anger.

CG: GEE DAVE, I DON’T KNOW!  
CG: HOW DO I SUM UP A YEAR’S WORTH OF EVENTS IN A FEW SENTENCES?  
CG: IT’S BEEN JUST GREAT, AFTER THE PERSON WHO I THOUGHT WAS MY BEST FRIEND DECIDED TO FUCK OFF THE FACE OF THE PLANET FOR A YEAR! I’VE HAD AN AMAZING TIME. ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL!  
TG: shit  
TG: um yeah sorry about that  
CG: ‘UM YEAH SORRY’ DOESN’T CHANGE ANYTHING. YOUR SORRIES ARE WORTHLESS NOW, IT’S TOO FUCKING LATE.  
TG: i know ok   
TG: fuck i dont even have an excuse for not talking to you earlier  
TG: but ive had a lot of time to myself you know  
TG: to think  
TG: about who i am and what i care about and how shitty it is that we hold ourselves up to these invisible ideals that dont actually mean anything  
TG: it doesnt make anything better and i dont even know if i can say ive changed a lot but  
TG: i miss talking to you man  
TG: shooting the shit and ribbing on each other for everything  
TG: tracing dicks in the stars like we used to when we were snot nosed kids going to the grodiest summer camp this side of the mississippi river

You snort at that.

CG: EXCUSE YOU.  
CG: I NEVER TRACED A SINGLE DICK IN THE SKY. THAT WAS ENTIRELY YOU. I ONLY EVER TRACED *LEGITIMATE* CONSTELLATIONS THAT HAVE CENTURIES OF BACKING FROM *LEGITIMATE* ASTRONOMERS TO BACK THEM UP.  
TG: ok point  
TG: but if you try to tell me that you didnt laugh at at least ONE of the dick pics in the night sky ill have to call you out on your bullshit  
TG: i have hard proof  
TG: wait  
TG: shit  
TG: nvm  
CG: YOU’RE STILL JUST AS MUCH OF A LOSER AS I REMEMBER.  
TG: rude  
TG: i have never been a loser in my entire life  
TG: dont believe everything the news tells you karkat keep an open mind

Your anger slowly subsides, driven away as you try to stifle your laughter.

CG: I MISSED YOU TOO.  
TG: so then  
TG: gonna throwback to kindergarten right now hold onto your crayons karkat  
TG: do you want to be friends again  
TG: one shit for yes two shits for no  
CG: SHIT.  
TG: awesome

.

CG: SO YEAH, I’VE ACTUALLY TRIED WRITING A COUPLE OF THINGS MYSELF. NOTHING TOO EXCITING, JUST A FEW SHORT STORIES HERE AND THERE.  
CG: THE LONGEST ONE IS 40 PAGES. IT’S THE ONLY ONE THAT ISN’T A COMPLETE AND TOTALLY UNSALVAGEABLE PIECE OF SHIT.  
CG: I STILL NEED TO REVISE IT BEFORE I CAN UNLEASH IT ON ANYONE ELSE, THOUGH.  
TG: wait shit really  
TG: dude thats awesome  
TG: are you going to be the next stephanie meyer  
TG: publish the twilight of 2016  
TG: captivate 12 year old girls and their moms across the country  
TG: start a bunch of flame wars on the internet over which love interest deserves the main character more and ruin friendships in the process  
TG: can i get an exclusive sneak peak  
CG: WHAT PART OF “I STILL NEED TO REVISE IT” DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND? DID YOU JUST COMPLETELY IGNORE WHAT I WROTE SO YOU COULD SPOUT OFF A RAMBLE ABOUT A BOOK THAT PEOPLE STOPPED CARING ABOUT 5 YEARS AGO?  
CG: TWILIGHT ISN’T THAT BAD, BY THE WAY. THE BOOKS ARE OK, BUT I’VE READ BETTER.  
CG: SO NO, YOU CAN’T.  
TG: aw  
TG: are you gonna let rose read it  
CG: AFTER MY FIRST REVISION, YES.  
CG: SHE OFFERED TO EDIT IT.  
TG: shell just include an entire chapter on wizard slash i hope youre ready for that  
TG: itll be an intermission of old dudes bothering their beards and giving each other heated looks  
TG: be careful she may steal your thunder  
CG: I’VE READ HER STUFF. I SERIOUSLY DOUBT IT.  
CG: WE’RE TRYING TO APPEAL TO TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT CROWDS. IT JUST WON’T WORK WELL TOGETHER.  
CG: NOT TO SAY THAT HER WRITING IS BAD. JUST…GOD, SHE BASICALLY VOMITS A DICTIONARY ONTO THE PAPER. SHE PUTS MOBY DICK’S ENTIRE CHAPTER DESCRIBING A BOWL OF SOUP TO SHAME.  
TG: wait shes let you read it  
TG: what the fuck  
TG: how could she do this to her own brother whatever happened to family bonds  
TG: you know what fuck it im going over to her room right the fuck now im not even sorry about interrupting her makeout session with kanaya  
TG: but before i go  
TG: what are you doing tomorrow  
CG: UH  
CG: NOTHING? LIKE USUAL.  
CG: WHY?  
TG: sweet lets grab pizza  
TG: bro says i can borrow his car  
CG: YOU ALREADY ASKED HIM?  
TG: nah we got an unspoken agreement i can borrow it if hes asleep and i dont have to ask  
TG: and theres no way in hell that hell be awake before 2pm  
TG: so ill pick you up at 11?  
CG: …  
TG: …  
CG:  
CG: SURE.  
CG: SEE YOU TOMORROW.

\-- turntechGodhead  [TG] has ceased pestering carcinoGeneticist  [CG] \--

.

Terezi somehow hears about your plans with Dave, and so you spend the hour before he’s supposed to come pick you up listening to her howl with laughter over the phone.

She’s not even making fun of you – you know that. 

1T 1S L4UGHT3R ON YOUR B3H4LF! She explains. TR1UMPH4NT L4UGHT3R TO PROP3RLY S3ND YOU OFF ON YOUR D4T3 >:]

Calling it a date feels almost like an insult. You’re not ready for that. Not yet.

You’re barely becoming friends again – that’s all you think you can really handle right now.

You only manage to shake her off when the doorbell rings. You don’t have much to bring; just your wallet and phone. You open the door to see Dave leaning against the wall, rubbing his gloved hands together. You can see his breath in the air as he exhales.

“I forgot how cold it is here,” he breathes. A thick, red scarf is wrapped around his neck, accompanied by a matching beanie. You recognize the pattern. You have a gray one that looks exactly like his; a Christmas present from Rose. That, combined with his shades, covers almost his entire face. The only thing that isn’t covered is his nose, bright red from the cold.

“You have a week and a half to get used to it,” you tell him as you shove your feet into your boots. It’s a challenge when you’re wearing two pairs of socks at once.

“Guess I’m boned then.”

You stand up and head outside, pulling the door shut as you go. The moment you step outside, you see Bro’s piece of ironic shit orange soccer mom van parked in your driveway. A fine layer of snow covers the entire thing, but it isn’t enough to block the obnoxious color.

You didn’t realize you could even miss this ugly thing, but you did.

“It’s just as hideous as I remember.”

“It’s shittiness is like a universal constant, man.”

You slide into the passenger’s seat as Dave turns the car on. The first thing he does is smack the heater, as if that’ll make it warm up any faster. “At least the pizza will be warm,” he mutters under his breath. “I turned the engine off for two minutes. How the hell did it turn back into the artic in here?”

“Illinois winter is a bitch,” you tell him.

“If the Illinois winter and the humid Texas summer got into a bitch-fight, who do you think would win?” Dave asks, his tone completely serious as he pulls out of the driveway. 

You roll your eyes. “Considering I’ve never been to Texas, I don’t have a fucking clue.”

“Trick question. They both win, because they’re both so terrible but in completely different ways that you just can’t compare them. They take each other out at the exact same time.”

You spend the entire car ride trading idiotic comments like that back and forth. It feels like there’s some gigantic elephant in the middle of the metaphorical room that you’re carefully tiptoeing around and pretending not to see. There’s an undercurrent of awkward running through every moment you spend in each other’s presence, but it’s subtle enough that you can ignore it.

You split a large pizza and somehow manage to demolish the entire thing. When you ask Dave where the fuck he packed all that food away to, he asks you the same thing. You punch him in the arm for his stupid remark, but all it does is make him laugh.

All in all, it isn’t so bad. Not what it used to be, of course, but not bad enough to send either of you running to the hills. It’s just two friends trying to catch up.

Just as you’re about to get out of his car after he drops you back off at your house, he clears his throat. “Karkat. Wait.” He says.

You turn to look at him with a confused half-scowl. “What?”

He swallows. “So.” He takes a deep breath, and suddenly loses any courage he previously gathered. “Um. See you soon?” He asks, hesitant and quiet.

You pause briefly. “Yeah. See you soon.”

.

You don’t see Dave every day, but you see him most days. After your pizza excursion, you usually don’t hang out with him alone. Most of the time, at least one of your other friends, if not as much of the fucking gang as possible, tags along. You find yourself liking the group activities more than the times when you’re alone.

At least when you’re in a group, it’s easier to dance around the fact that you’re not entirely sure what you want from Dave anymore. You miss his friendship, but there’s still a part of you that screams with want for him, and it gets louder each day.

He’s more attractive than you remember. Okay, fuck it, he’s just hot. It’s probably due in part to your hormones running rampant, but there are times when you catch yourself looking at him without meaning to. You didn’t notice it at first, but he’s finally grown into himself. He’s back to a normal proportion of limbs-to-body. He’s still pretty twiggy, but you can also see long, lean muscle on him when he stretches. He has more freckles than you remember.

Seeing that small patch of his stomach whenever he raises his arms drives you absolutely crazy. You can never look away from it.

There are times when you’re pretty certain that you catch him looking at you, too. It’s hard to tell behind the shades.

.

When it finally comes time to address the elephant taking up a majority of the room, leave it to you to be unable to talk about it face-to-face with Dave.

Instead, you message him in the safety of your own room.

\-- carcinoGeneticist  [CG] began pestering turntechGodhead  [TG] \-- 

CG: DAVE.  
CG: BREAK IS ALMOST OVER. WE ONLY HAVE TWO DAYS LEFT UNTIL SCHOOL STARTS, SO SOMETHING TELLS ME THAT YOU’RE LEAVING TOMORROW.  
CG: THAT SOMETHING HAPPENS TO BE LOGIC, BACKED UP BY ROSE TELLING ME THAT YOU’RE LEAVING TOMORROW.  
CG: SO.  
CG: WE NEED TO TALK.  
TG: yeah sure man but we kind of already are talking  
CG: STOP PLAYING DUMB. YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.  
CG: ABOUT…US.  
TG: ok yeah thats what i figured  
TG: uh  
TG: yeah  
TG: so i kinda had a lot of time to think to myself when i was in texas  
TG: you know what with my best friends all being a thousand miles away and well  
TG: you  
TG: yeah  
TG: never being able to talk to you  
TG: trust me man i TRIED but every time i clicked that chat box i just did an acrobatic pirouette off the fucking handle into a vat of uncool panic  
TG: said vat was labeled NOT GAY in rainbow colored markers  
TG: so i just didnt  
CG: WELL, THANKS FOR THAT, I GUESS.  
CG: AND BY THANKS I MEAN FUCK YOU.  
TG: yeah i agree fuck me  
TG: i started thinking more and talking to rose and jade and bro more and over time the fact that you were a dude stopped mattering as much  
TG: i mean im still not gay all the times ive looked at a girl and gone holy shit what i wouldnt do to even talk to her are still totally legitimate  
TG: what i came to decide is that labels are dumb  
TG: gay straight bi it doesnt matter if im into someone then im into someone thats that  
TG: i dont need to be anything other than dave  
CG: OH.  
CG: WELL…  
CG: YOU SOUND LIKE YOU’RE A LOT MORE AT PEACE ABOUT THAT. I COULD ALWAYS TELL THAT IT FUCKED WITH YOU A LOT.  
CG: EVERY TIME WE  
CG: YEAH  
CG: I COULD SEE YOU FIGHTING WITH YOURSELF. SO I TRIED NOT TO PUSH IT.  
CG: BUT THERE WAS ONLY SO MUCH I COULD HANDLE. I TRIED, I REALLY FUCKING DID. AND I KNOW I’M (STILL!) A PATHETIC AND NEEDY PILE OF GARBAGE WHO ACTS LIKE I’LL DIE WITHOUT CONSTANT VALIDATION THAT I MATTER, BUT…FUCK, SEEING KANAYA AND ROSE HAPPY? SEEING SOLLUX ONCE HE STARTED DATING HIS GIRLFRIEND?  
CG: IT KILLED ME.  
CG: I WANTED THAT, TOO. AND IT WASN’T FAIR THAT I COULDN’T HAVE IT.  
TG: it wasn’t fair at all it was fucking shitty of me to do that to you  
TG: looking back it was like i was leading you on? making you think that i wasnt planning on just bouncing the fuck out of there the moment the homo alarms got too loud to ignore any longer  
TG: i always kind of knew it would end like it did  
CG: SO  
CG: I WAS JUST A MISTAKE?  
CG: WE WERE A MISTAKE?  
TG: NO SHIT no never  
TG: if i could go back in time and punch myself in the face before i said that i totally would  
TG: i dont even care if i punch all my teeth out ill just talk like an idiot for the rest of my life id deserve it  
TG: the way i talk would finally match the meaningless garbage constantly spewing out of my mouth like the worlds shittiest trash compacter  
TG: news flash its supposed to go in not out  
CG: IT’S  
CG: I CAN’T SAY IT’S OK. OR EVEN THAT I FORGIVE YOU.  
CG: BUT I WANT TO MOVE ON FROM THAT. I’M SO FUCKING TIRED OF BEING HUNG UP ON ONE CONVERSATION THAT HAPPENED A YEAR AGO.  
TG: same  
CG: AND IF IT HELPS ANY, NOT EVERYTHING YOU SAY IS COMPLETE GARBAGE.  
CG: MOST THINGS AREN’T, ACTUALLY.  
TG: thanks  
TG:  
CG:   
TG:   
CG: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?  
CG: DO YOU  
CG: DO YOU STILL…?  
CG: YOU KNOW.  
CG: FEEL THE WAY YOU USED TO.  
TG: i dont really know anymore  
TG: maybe?  
TG: all i know is that youre still my best friend and i want us to keep being friends  
TG: fuck you never STOPPED being my best friend  
TG: maybe we could try for more in the future but for now i think that may be pushing it  
CG: OK.  
CG: I WANT US TO KEEP BEING FRIENDS, TOO.  
TG: cool  
TG: see you this summer?  
CG: YEAH. SEE YOU THIS SUMMER.

.

You don’t see Dave off when he leaves the next day.

But he messages you once he gets off the plane, and for now, that’s good enough for you.

.

Before you know it, Dave becomes an integral part of your life again. You message each other nearly every day, talking about anything and everything that happens to either of you.

You find out more about him; things you never even knew before. How he goes to a real high school, but doesn’t actually have any friends to hang out with anymore, not after John moved away. He has many acquaintances, but he only ever sees them at school. How he spends most of his free time immersed in art, whether it’s drawing things that look like they came straight out of an acid trip, hanging up picture after picture in his dark room, or making music.

He can play the guitar. You had no idea.

You get into trouble constantly for texting him during class. At work, your manager gets so pissed off that she shoves your phone in her desk during your shifts. You make jokes to Dave about how you don’t even go to camp anymore but you still somehow get treebulations, and he eats your shit up like it’s candy. He offers you bad jokes that are equally as terrible as yours, so it evens out.

Your dad comments on how you’re basically glued to your phone these days. “I’m just glad it isn’t my computer anymore,” he says with a chuckle. You glare at him, only managing not to flip him off because he’s your dad and you’d rather not get grounded. 

In some ways, it’s like you’ve gone back in time. You feel like you did when you were twelve again, constantly waiting for Dave to message you back. He somehow re-establishes himself as a constant presence in your life, even if that presence mostly takes place in the form of a torrent of red text on your phone screen.

In other ways, though, it’s completely different. You Face Time him on occasion. There’s a night when you call him, unsure if he’d still even be awake, only to see Dave appear on your screen. You couldn’t sleep, and you just wanted someone to keep you company.

When he answers he’s dripping wet, hair plastered to his forehead and eyes brighter than usual. He isn’t wearing a shirt. All you can see are the tops of his bare shoulders, but it still sends a shock of heat down your spine that curls in your gut. You force your face into something that hopefully looks slightly disgruntled instead of slightly hot and bothered.

Whatever the fuck is looking out for you from above is merciful enough to spare you any further misery when he leaves to go grab a shirt. You take the time you force your breathing to return to normal and calm yourself down.

Dave makes a conscious effort _not_ to flirt with you, so the least you can do is not flip the fuck out over how hot he is. The last thing you want to do is drive him off.

You knew how much you missed him, but you didn’t realize how wonderful it’d feel to have him back.

.

You count down the days until summer, and you know that Dave does the same. He’s coming back to Illinois the day after he gets out of school, which happens to coincide with your finals week.

The fact that you don’t even get to see him until four days after he returns feels like a thorn in your side. At least you and Kanaya find solace in complaining to each other.

She hasn’t been able to see Rose in two entire weeks. Rose is also swamped in schoolwork, leaving them almost no time to talk to each other. You can see it getting to her, so you try to cheer her up by reading her favorite novels out loud to her when you’re not swamped underneath a pile of tests to study for. 

But then the torture finally ends, and you’re free to make plans to visit Dave. You and Kanaya decide to go together – Rose’s mom was gracious enough to allow both of you to stay for a week. You think the fact that Roxy is also home for the summer may have something to do with that.

When Roxy comes to pick you and Kanaya up, you thank her. The mischievous grin she gives you tells you exactly what you thought: she did have a hand in this setup.

Dave and Rose are both hanging around the front door when you finally get there, and they both fail spectacularly at looking casual. 

You follow Dave up to his room as Rose walks over to give Kanaya a kiss.

The air mattress is already blown up when you open his door.

.

You spend most of the afternoon being harassed by the whole Strilonde family. Kanaya watches on in amusement. There’s a certain cheerful atmosphere that you haven’t felt in a long time.

Maybe it’s because now, Dave is also there, laughing at your side.

That night, after Roxy has had her fill of grilling you all about any updates in your lives, you and Dave retire to his room. “So,” he says, collapsing into his desk chair and spinning around in a lazy circle, “what should we do? Movie? Gossip? Take a card from Rose’s hand and try to summon demons from another dimension?”

You carefully sit down on his bed. You recognize most of the furniture, but the comforter is new. It’s a light blue with white stripes; it doesn’t fit him. You wonder where he got it from. “Considering I’m not in the mood to be harassed by Cthulu’s younger sibling, let’s just watch a movie.”

“Cool.” He opens up his laptop and clicks around on the screen. You’re too far away to see what he’s doing, but he seems to have an idea of what to do. “How does Hitch sound?”

“I haven’t watched that in…what, two years?”

“Me neither. Come on, I think it’s time for us to admire Will Smith. Haven’t met my weekly quota yet.”

He grabs his laptop and moves to sit on the bed with you. He puts the laptop on your lap as he squirms back until he’s leaning against the wall. He pats the spot next to him, waiting for you to join.

You hold the laptop and shuffle on your knees over to him, setting the computer down between the two of you as you settle down. You fall into an easy, comfortable silence as you start the movie.

It is just as amazing as you remember. Will Smith continues to be a national treasure; your eyes remained glued to him anytime he’s on screen. You feel a pair of eyes watching you at a few different points, but you steadfastly ignore them. 

You sink lower onto the bed, absentmindedly grabbing a pillow from the head of the bed and hugging it. A slow, gentle warmth fills you, and you think that this must be what contentedness feels like. You haven’t felt this way in a long time.

You hear a low chuckle come from next to you. Since Will Smith isn’t currently on screen, you glance over to see Dave watching you with a small smirk. He bristles when you make eye contact (or at least, when you think you make eye contact) and quickly turns his attention back to the screen. You see a light dusting of red over his cheeks.

You feel a flash of electricity run down your spine.

Huh.

Suddenly the movie doesn’t seem very interesting anymore. Not even Will Smith’s amazing existence can pull your full attention back to it. Instead your thoughts focus on the boy next to you.

You’re definitely friends again, that’s for sure. This is the first time you’ve really hung out alone since your slightly-forced pizza outing (not a date not a date), but you’ve talked to him for hours almost every day for the past few months.

A sudden thought grips you. You curl away from it at first, but decide that ignoring it is futile. It’s been there all along. You’ve wanted to avoid it so you wouldn’t get hurt, but seeing Dave’s reaction just brings it all back to the surface.

You’re in love with him.

.

He starts treating you a little differently after that. It’s not entirely unfamiliar; you’re used to the increase in casual touches, in the way he’ll subtly sit a little closer than normal to you on the couch. It fills you with panic at first, a reflexive fear that you’re only going to get your heart broken again.

But it’s no longer the awkward fumblings of a kid who can’t admit his own feelings to himself. Every move Dave makes is very deliberate. You don’t comment on it, but he has to fight down a small smile whenever you reciprocate.

One night after you’ve retired back to Dave’s room for the night, you both sit down on his bed. He wants to clean up some shit he recorded after fucking around on his guitar earlier, and there’s an e-book on your laptop that you’re dying to finish. The air mattress is kind of a piece of shit, so you both end up on his bed. He settles down near his headboard, using his pillows as a backrest. His laptop is balanced on his legs.

You take a deep breath as a sudden idea strikes you. Your heart begins to race in your chest, but you shuffle towards him anyways. You lay down and rest your head against the junction where his hip meets his thigh. He’s bony as shit, but he isn’t uncomfortable enough to make you move.

You hear his breath catch in his chest. When you glance up at him, you can see him staring at you, wide-eyed through his sunglasses.

You offer him a small smile that probably looks just as shy as you feel, and turn your attention back to your computer.

.

Physical boundaries between you and Dave stop mattering as much. You don’t talk about it, but the meaning behind every action is very intentional. It almost feels like you’re both testing to see how far the other is willing to go.

It’s never anything explicitly romantic. You lean against each other when sitting together. You’ll read a book as Dave listens to music, his head pillowed on your lap. He casually combs his fingers through your hair whenever he gets a chance; it’s soothing, but you’re pretty sure he does it because he has a thing for touching your hair.

He still rarely shuts the fuck up, but his constant stream of chatter fills you with a warmth that’s like coming home after a long trip.

It takes four days for the balance to finally tip.

You and Dave spend the majority of the day alone in his house. Rose, Kanaya, and Roxy left for a girl’s day out; what that entails, you have no idea. Bro fucks off to who-knows-where, and Rose’s mom, being the only responsible adult of the household, goes to work. 

“There isn’t any spaghetti sauce in any of the cabinets,” Dave says, hopping up to sit on the kitchen counter. You scowl and tug at his arm until he gets off. That’s the last place his ass belongs. “So much for pasta.”

You throw open the fridge and rummage around inside. It’s well-stocked, full of fresh fruits and vegetables. You look at it approvingly. “Yeah, right. We’ll just make our own.”

You glance back at Dave so you can better gauge his reaction. He scrunches his nose up and frowns. It’s so cute that you feel a little disgusted.

A brief picture flashes in your mind: you marching up to him and ignoring his look of bewilderment as you wrap yourself around him and kiss him like he’s your only lifeline.

You clear your head of the thought. No. Not now.

You gather the necessary ingredients and set them out on the counter, careful to avoid the spot still tainted by Dave’s ass. You get him to start chopping the vegetables as you look for a proper pot and pan to use. You hear the knife hit the cutting board at erratic intervals, coinciding with Dave swearing under his breath. 

You just finished filling a pot full of water when you hear Dave practically shout, “fuck yeah, done! These tomatoes are so fucking cut, man. All tiny and quivering, wondering when everything got so big.”

You look at him with an expression that was supposed to be annoyed, but you’re overcome with such a fondness that you face refuses to obey you. What a fucking traitor.

Dave turns to face you, but quickly looks away. He lets out a long breath as his face turns red. He’s embarrassed. “Wow, ok. A little intense, there.”

“What?” You ask like the eloquent wordsmith you are.

“Karkat, just…shit,” he shakes his head, “you don’t even know what that look does to me. Murders me every single time. That look is charged with first degree murder. Deserves a life sentence. I never even had a chance to fight back.”

What?

You mull his words over in his head. That, combined with the way he’s refusing to look you in the eye, on top of how he starts doing a better and better impression of a cherry with each passing second must mean…

Oh.

_Oh._

It’s finally time.

“Can I kiss you?” You ask, the words out of your mouth before you even realize what you’re saying. What the fuck were you just thinking? You’re about ready to kick yourself and take it back when Dave’s head snaps up to look at you.

He actually takes off his fucking shades to better gape at you like a complete moron. “Wait, really? Like, now?”

“Shit, it just kind of came out. Sorry, I-“

“-hell fucking yes.”

You stare at him, dumbfounded. You feel your jaw drop open. You must look at least half as idiot as you feel.

Dave swallows thickly. “Yes, please. Fuck, Karkat…if I had to wait any longer for you to ask I probably would have shriveled up into a sexually frustrated raisin.”

Well.

This changes things.

You definitely _don’t_ run over to him; it only looks like he has to catch you in his arms to keep you from barreling him over. You wrap your arms around his neck and kiss him like your lives depended on it.

You fall into an easy rhythm almost instantly. He still feels so familiar. You pull away before you get too carried away. Dave opens his eyes and looks at you with the most brilliant grin you’ve ever seen. You feel your heart lurch in your chest.

“I feel like I just won the friendship lottery. Not only is my best friend one of the hottest goddamn people I’ve ever seen, but he’s also a damn good kisser. Best of all? He wants to kiss me.”

“Best friend?” You repeat hesitantly.

“It’s true, isn’t it? But I guess it doesn’t have to be everything,” his voice grows a little quieter (a little shier, you think), “if you want?”

You let go of him to better stand your ground. Your hands curl into fists as they fall to your sides. “I want to be your boyfriend. For real. No hiding, no waiting to act like we actually fucking like each other until we’re behind closed doors.”

“Deal.” Dave’s grinning so hard that you wonder if his face will permanently get stuck that way. You kiss him again, if only to test the question.

.

You lug your duffle bag down the stairs over to where Kanaya and Dave are standing. Rose isn’t awake to see her girlfriend off, but apparently this happens often enough that Kanaya doesn’t even seem fazed.

Dave kisses you goodbye right before you leave. On the lips. Right in front of Kanaya. Just a chaste peck, but the meaning behind it is undeniable.

Kanaya looks at you in shock as you pull her outside.

“What, I can’t kiss my boyfriend goodbye?” You ask her.

She pulls you into a tight hug. You struggle to breathe, but you can almost feel the waves of happiness rolling off of her.

“Congratulations,” she says, voice thick with emotion. She looks like she’s about to cry, and if she cries, you’ll definitely cry, too.

“About fucking time, right?”

“Right.”

.

Kanaya finally gets her dream of getting to go on a double date with you and Dave. You have to basically bribe your respective partners to get them to fucking agree, but letting Dave have movie choice during your movie nights for the next month is a small price to pay for the chance to see Kanaya so fucking happy.

You don’t know what she did to convince Rose, but judging by the intense blush that creeps up on her face when you ask, you’re not sure if you really want to know. 

The four of you go to some fancy Italian place with a name that you and Dave spend five minutes failing to pronounce. Kanaya _also_ somehow managed to convince Jade to let her drive her car; you have absolutely zero idea how she accomplished it. Still, it adds a certain appeal to the night that would have been completely lost if one of your parents had to shuttle you around. You feel more like an adult this way, rather than a little kid playing dress up and pretending to be mature for a night.

You’re all dressed in the fanciest evening wear you own. You wear the black suit your dad got you for the winter formal you skipped out on last year, while Dave wears a similar suit with a bright red undershirt. Kanaya wears a long, flowing jade dress that’s just short enough to show flashes of her silver heels when she walks. Rose’s outfit is a lavender cocktail dress; it doesn’t look like her style at all.

Roxy insisted. Is all she tells you when you ask.

Despite the intimidating décor of the restaurant, the food is reasonably priced. Dave and Rose spend the entire night grimacing at each other, only interrupted by Dave shooting the occasional longing glance at his shades. Kanaya ripped them off his face and hung them off her bag the moment you all got out of the car.

If We Are Going To Do This We Are Going To Go All The Way, she had said.

At least the food is good.

Dave swears never to go on another double date again, but Kanaya thanks you afterwards. It’s worth it in the end.

.

You’re sitting at your desk typing furiously on your keyboard as you fight with Sollux over the fact that you have a fucking MacBook when you hear the doorbell ring. 

You look away from your computer. Who the fuck could that be? Your dad is at work and who in their right mind would stop by to visit you on a Wednesday afternoon? You know for a fact that Terezi and Kanaya are busy, and given that Sollux is currently spamming your computer with his baby shit yellow messages, he wouldn’t come by to see you. 

Fuck, even if he _wasn’t_ spamming your computer with baby shit yellow messages, he wouldn’t come by to see you.

Confused and slightly cautious, you head downstairs and creep towards the front door. You open it slowly, and your jaw immediately drops at the sight in front of you.

Dave leans against your doorway, clearly flustered as all hell. He holds a giant bouquet of red roses in one hand, and a box of chocolates in the other.

“Hey bro. Happy birthday.” He holds up the box of chocolates. “I figured that since it’s your sweet 16th, I should get you something diabetes-inducing.” His voice shakes slightly as he talks.

You forgot what today was. Leave it to someone as amazingly obtuse as you to forget your own fucking birthday. Fuck, you woke up to a bunch of birthday texts and you _still_ forgot.

You’re silent as you gesture for him to step inside. You take his gifts and gently set them down on the nearest table before throwing yourself at him. You practically collide into him, and he barely manages to gasp out a breathless, “holy shi-“ that you cut off with a rough kiss. He stumbles backward, trying to regain his balance, and he ends up sandwiched between you and the wall. You feel a needy sound that he makes in the back of his throat more than you hear it, and it shoots through you. It takes a grand total of five more seconds before you’re making out like the desperate, hormonal teenagers you are.

His hands are in your hair and your hands are underneath his shirt when he finally pulls away to take a large breath. “Shit, I thought I was supposed to be giving you a present, not the other way around.” You can see his eyes from this close, and his pupils are huge as he looks down at you. You feel like fireworks are going off inside of you. You keep running your hands over his skin, relishing the way he has to struggle to keep his composure.

I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S POSSIBLE THAT YOU MAKE ME SO HAPPY, you almost tell him.

“How the fuck is it even possible to feel this much?” You ask, stilling your hands and burying your face in his shoulder. His arms wrap around you and pull you into a tight hug. He rests his cheek against the top of your head and hums.

I’VE NEVER FELT THIS WAY ABOUT ANYONE BUT YOU, you almost say.

“Shit dude, my secret’s out. I’m actually a wizard, magic wand and all. Lifted straight out of one of Rose’s slashfics. It’s fucking magic is what it is.”

HOW CAN YOU BE SO STUPIDLY PERFECT? I CAN’T WRAP MY MIND AROUND HOW THE HELL I WAS EVER FORTUNATE ENOUGH FOR YOU TO HAPPEN TO ME. EVEN WHEN YOU’RE AN OBNOXIOUS JACKASS, YOU’RE STILL AMAZING, stays on the tip of your tongue.

“Anyways,” Dave says, letting you go, “as down as I am for making out and cuddling, we still have part three of your present to get to. C’mon, go get some shoes on and shit.”

He doesn’t follow you as you return to your room. You remember not to be a complete asshole and message Sollux to say that you’ll talk to him later. You feel as if you’re in a daze as you walk around your room, checking to make sure you have everything you need. Wallet, keys, a pair of socks you just grabbed out of the drawer. Good.

“Wait just a little longer,” you tell Dave once you come back to the front of your house. You grab the bouquet of roses and take them to the kitchen. You rummage around the cabinets until you find a large pitcher, fill it full of water, and dump the flowers inside. You know you have a nice vase around here somewhere, but you have better things to do right now than dick around looking for some fancy glass. Kanaya and Jade would eviscerate you if they ever found out about your subpar floral care, but the fact that you have an amazing boyfriend who is waiting for you to hurry the fuck up outweighs their potential wrath.

One you go back to Dave and slip your shoes on, he laces your hands together and leads you outside. Bro’s ironic piece of shit soccer mom van takes up your entire driveway, and you grimace even as you get inside. You notice that the seats in the back are all down; only the passenger and driver seats remain upright. A large, plastic bin sits in the back corner of the van. You can’t make out what’s inside.

“Wait, what the fuck are we doing?”

Dave smirks. “Top secret, Karkat. Shit’s locked down by the CIA. Need the right clearance to access this sweet information.”

“Dave. We are currently sitting in a car about to go who-the-fuck-knows-where. Just tell me.”

Dave shrugs. “No can do. You’ll find out when we get there.”

“How long will we be gone? I should probably tell my dad…”

“Already taken care of,” Dave says as he turns on the engine. “He got security clearance. Briefed the shit out of him.”

You pull a face. “That sounds disturbingly sexual. How about you do the both of us a favor and never say that again.”

“You know me, Karkat. My mouth is a goddamn landmine of inappropriate innuendos. You never know when you’ll step on one and suddenly we’re both clutching our faces in our hands groaning.”

“You’re only making a joke out of it because it’s my dad,” you accuse, shoving his shoulder. “If you said that about Rose you would have thrown yourself out of the car by now.”

You trade banter back and forth for the rest of the car ride, settling into a familiar, comfortable rhythm. The landscape around you grows greener and more wild with time. Huh. You thought you were going to the city, but you guess not. 

You stop for dinner in a town that’s even smaller and more suburban than your own. The restaurant is incredibly small, and the owner herself is the one that serves your food and chats with Dave as you figure out what to order. She doesn’t comment when she comes back with your drinks (pop for Dave, and iced tea for yourself) to see Dave fucking around and trying to hold your hand. His thumb rubs circles over your knuckles. He doesn’t stop, even when he turns his head to look at her. 

You breathe a silent sigh of relief.

One wholly American dinner later, you’re back on the road. The sun begins to sink below the horizon as the highway finally breaks free of all signs of civilization. All around you are placid green fields broken up by the occasional tree. It’s all you’ve known for your entire life, but it feels like home. You lean back against your seat and doze off, allowing your mind to wander with the music that flows out of the speakers.

You don’t realize that you’ve fallen asleep until you feel Dave gently shaking your shoulder. “Rise and shine, bro. We’ve arrived at the ball. Gotta make our grand entrance, y’know?”

You slowly open your eyes and look over to him. His shades are abandoned on the car’s dashboard, and he watches you with warmth in his eyes. Your chest aches pleasantly, and a warmth spreads throughout your body.

He’s pliant as you lean over to press a sleepy kiss against his lips. When you pull away, a dopey, lovestruck smile is plastered all over his face. It only makes that warm feeling seep further into you. You are so utterly fucked for this boy.

You both leave the car, and it’s only when you’re outside that you realize that you’re in the middle of fucking nowhere. You can’t see a single building for miles. “Dave, what the fuck?” You ask, watching with confusion as he lugs the plastic bin out of the back of the van. He drops it on the ground and takes off the lid, pulling out a large, plush blanket.

“Don’t worry,” he tells you, shoving the blanket into your arms, “you’ll see soon.” He looks around the area before pointing to a spot that looks exactly like every other fucking spot in the field.

He helps you spread the blanket down on the ground. Once it’s suitably flat, he practically throws himself down on it, pulling you down in the process. You go down in a tangle of limbs, a sound escaping your mouth that is definitely _not_ a screech. Dave has the audacity to laugh at you as you resettle yourself, and you level a perfectly justified glare at him.

“Enough frowning at me,” Dave says, laying down on his back. He points up at the sky. “Don’t wanna miss out on this view, do you?”

You look up and. Oh. _Oh._ The sky is full of bright, twinkling lights completely covering a sea of black. You must be able to see thousands of them.

You haven’t gone stargazing since you were fourteen.

Dave takes your hand in his and traces a familiar shape in the sky. “Found Libra,” he says, your intertwined hands easily following the proper stars. He points to another one a little further off to the side. You recognize it instantly. “And there’s my constellation, in all of his shirtless horse-dude glory.”

You open your mouth to complain when he points to a constellation right on the horizon. “And look. Found yours, too.” The stars are faint, but he easily traces out Cancer’s shape.

“You’ve gotten good at this,” you say, scooting over until your head rests on his chest. His heartbeat pounds in your ears, filling your mind until it’s all you can think about.

He continues to point your clasped hands at different star patterns, naming constellation after constellation. You’re amazed at how many he remembers. He doesn’t fuck a single one up.

It takes a few moments for you to come to the realization that you’re the only reason why he ever bothered to learn (and remember!) all of these. He brought you all the way out here just to stargaze with you – do the one thing that brought you together in the first place. For your birthday – his gift to you.

The sheer romanticism of it makes you want to cry. Tears prick at the corner of your eyes, but you blink then away as you lean up to look at him. He watches you, confused. His confusion morphs into a full-out pout when you untangle your hand from his.

But you have a better use for that hand right now. You take his face in your hands and kiss him deeply, trying to pour every single emotion bubbling up in your chest into him. He wraps his arms around your back and pulls you closer, kissing you back with just as much intensity.

You only pull away when you feel like you’re going to burst with the sheer amount of _feeling_ he brings out of you. 

I LOVE YOU. FUCK, I THINK I’VE BEEN IN LOVE WITH YOU FOR YEARS. EVEN WHEN WE DIDN’T TALK, I WAS STILL IN LOVE WITH YOU.

Dave stills underneath you, and it’s only then when you realize with a growing horror that you said that out loud. You freeze, panic replacing every single vaguely positive emotion you just felt. You’re about to scramble away when he pulls you to him and buries his face in your hair.

“Fuck,” he says breathlessly, mouth somewhere just above your ear. “Fucking hell, Karkat. Me too, all the fucking way. I was just too much of a dumbass to accept it before.”

An owl hoots somewhere in the distance. Dave chuckles, the sound strained and higher than normal. “Haven’t heard one of those in a long time. It’s always just been fucking crows.”

You’re somewhat thankful for the sudden topic change. You don’t know how much more of that you could handle before exploding into a pile of disgusting, sappy, love-struck mush. “Me too,” you say. “It’s nice.”

He pulls you a little closer to himself. “Happy birthday.”

“You already said that.”

“Needed to say it again.”

You both look back up at the sky, falling into an easy, comfortable silence.

The stars glitter overhead, and you think they may be the brightest you’ve ever seen them.


End file.
